


Younger

by marchh



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Presumably anything canon would need to warn for applies here, To a point, au where everything is the same except sherlock is the older sibling, birth order stereotypes, seeing as the events will more or less follow canon, this is a comedy dw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-11
Updated: 2019-03-27
Packaged: 2019-09-16 13:38:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 28
Words: 42,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16955067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marchh/pseuds/marchh
Summary: Sherlock has a secret sibling. No, not that one.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [Ariane DeVere](arianedevere.dreamwidth.org) for the transcripts!!

“I want you to send a text.”

 

John glares at Sherlock, before stomping over to desk anyway to pick up the phone that wasn’t even _halfway across the room_ from the couch, and type out the text as Sherlock directed. A potential flatmate! He didn’t even have an ounce of regard for the fact that he had literally just been abducted.

 

John bites back any exclamation of frustration and instead moves over to the window to peek outside, to see whether he was still being surveiled.

 

“What’s wrong?” Sherlock asks - finally.

 

“Just met a friend of yours,” John says lightly. Oh, _now_ he’s curious.

 

“A _friend?”_ he asks. He sounds incredulous, and John supposes he really doesn’t have many friends.

 

“An enemy,” John amends casually.

 

“Oh. Which one?”

 

“Your _arch-_ enemy, according to him,” John says, as he turns toward Sherlock. With the way Sherlock freezes at his words, you’d think he actually _did_ meet an arch-enemy of his.

 

“Do people _have_ arch-enemies?” John asks skeptically.

 

“He offered you money,” Sherlock says, not a guess.

 

“Well, yes.” John frowns. “But I didn’t take it.”

 

“Good. Take nothing from him, and give nothing to him. He will _never_ leave us alone if we so much as give him a single crumb,” Sherlock says darkly.

 

John waits, but Sherlock doesn’t elaborate.

 

“Who is he?”

 

Sherlock sighs silently, deflating further into the couch.

 

“The most dangerous man you have ever met, and not my problem in the slightest.”

  



	2. Chapter 2

“William!” his mother calls, voice breathy with exertion. The new nurses had carried her to bed, where she now reclines to wave Sherlock over once he pokes his head into the doorway.

 

At seven years old, he’d much rather be outside. Instead, he’s been made to wait all day indoors because mother and father were at  _ hospital _ \- the inconvenience of birthing a baby.

 

“William, come here,” she coos.

 

“My name is  _ Sherlock _ ,” he reminds her. It technically really is, too, it says so right on his birth certificate, right between “William” and “Scott.”

 

He shuffles toward the foot of her bed anyway.

 

“Come  _ closer _ ,” she insists, waving her hand in circles toward herself, as if she were paddling the air, trying to reel him in. Sherlock swallows a scowl and complies.

 

Her arms open as if for an embrace and he presciently leans in, except then she gestures to the tiny prison behind him and tells him to look.

 

Inside the cage of four barred sides and a little itty-bitty cot at the bottom is a tiny sack of flesh. It is pink and wrinkly and swaddled in a silly blue blanket patterned with goldfish.

 

“William, meet your baby brother,” his mother says with no small amount of delight.

 

Sherlock leans over the rails to better inspect the newcomer.

 

“Gross,” he mutters. Sherlock wonders whether this one will turn out to be a usurper or a co-conspirator. He best start the indoctrination early. 

 

“Mycroft Alcuin Holmes,” mother says fondly, before encouraging him to “Say hello.”

 

Sherlock wrinkles his nose.

 

.

 

“Look,” Sherlock says, staring Mycroft down. “I know we don’t always see eye to eye. Because you’re so short. And that we’ve had quarrels in the past. Since you’re still a bit stupid, and all. But.  _ But, _ if there were ever a time for cooperation, it is now. Mycroft Abernathy Holmes, you are not going to ruin this for me.”

 

Mycroft opens his mouth, and spills a waterfall of drool down his chin and onto Sherlock’s chest in response. 

 

Sherlock’s face contorts in disgust and Mycroft smiles - or gets gassy, Sherlock’s not sure - the teary demeanor long forgotten. The parents had wanted to go on an outing and Mycroft had been shoved into Sherlock’s arms momentarily so the couple could take a photo. 

 

Of course, in his rare unsupervised moment, Sherlock took off immediately, and Mycroft had seemed happy to comply, until he opened his fat mouth and dropped his dummy.

 

He’d been ready to cry and completely ruin Sherlock’s plan to escape toward the creek where he could examine various critters, but it seems they’ve managed to negotiate some peace. 

 

Sherlock ignores the damp puddle of drool on his shirt and ventures forward.

 

“Buh,” Mycroft says.

 

“Don’t get too full of yourself,” Sherlock warns. “This is a temporary treaty. It does not mean you have the upper hand permanently.”

 

“Buh,” Mycroft insists.

 

“If you keep persisting to argue, I will not show you the crayfish.”

 

Mycroft wisely holds his tongue.

 

.

  
“Sherlock!”

 

Sherlock looks up from his microscope just in time to see his tiny brother climb up the ottoman, lifting a too-big encyclopedia over his head in an effort to show his brother his findings, and then topple over backwards with a thud.

 

“Oof.”

 

Swallowing a sigh, Sherlock skulks around the table to peer over at Mycroft, who is now pinned under the heavy tome, eyes shining with unshed tears as he stares out overhead. Crybaby.

 

Then he turns those giant, sad eyes to Sherlock to plea for help. Sherlock sighs, but frees the bothersome creature from his encyclopedic prison anyway.

 

“Sherlock, will you read me a story?” he asks.

 

“No.” He’s busy. He is examining the difference between the mold that forms on the bread of sandwiches he stores away instead of eating and the mold-like blueness on the expensive cheese his father purchases.

 

“Puh-lease,” Mycroft says in a wobbly voice. 

 

“This isn’t even a storybook, Mycroft Arthur Holmes,” Sherlock tsks, lifting the book up to set on the table. “You’ve stolen the biggest volume of the library’s encyclopedia set, and for what? Medieval history?”

 

Mycroft shakes his head.

 

“It is too, there are wars and empires, just like on the game with the black and white pieces you taught me,” Mycroft whines. Everything he says is a whine, in that tiny baby voice of his. Sherlock eagerly awaits the day he grows out of it. 

 

“Will you play with me then?” he asks, when Sherlock makes no move to open the book.

 

“No.” Sherlock understands where his brother is coming from - at his age Sherlock wouldn’t sit still or stay quiet either; he dug holes in the yard for no reason and ran around like a maniac with his mother’s hat proclaiming himself a pirate. He would have delighted in a co-conspirator as well.

 

“What are you doing?”

 

“Studying mold.”

 

“What’s that?”

 

“The fungi that overtakes organic structure when they die.”

 

Except Mycroft doesn’t run around or play pretend, he doesn’t slay mythical sea creatures nor seek buried treasure. He wants to play  _ chess _ and - worse - he beats Sherlock when they play. The other day he asked Sherlock how to pronounce Sun Tzu, not because he fancied an imaginary expedition to imperial China, but because he’d heard one of father’s colleagues talking politics and mentioning the Art of War.

 

Mycroft is quiet long enough that Sherlock thinks perhaps he’s left the room, but before he bothers to look up, he feels tiny pudgy arms hugging his leg.

 

Sherlock begrudgingly pulls himself away from his microscope to look down, and regrets it almost immediately.

 

“Life is so fleeting,” Mycroft says forlornly, sighing and pressing his cheek against Sherlock’s knee. “I’m going to miss you when you get old and die.”

 

.

 

Mycroft is ten when Sherlock goes to university and Sherlock  _ burns with embarrassment _ because the child will  _ not stop bawling _ . 

 

Mother and father stand around, politely humoring their clingy youngest child as he stands and sobs between the two of them because his beloved elder brother is  _ leaving. _

 

“Oh, it’s not like I won’t see you in the summer!” Sherlock finally snaps.

 

Mycroft stops crying  _ immediately,  _ and that’s when Sherlock knows he was played.

 

“Promise?” he says, eyes wide and bottom lip quivering.

 

Sherlock gapes at him, stunned by the sheer  _ audacity _ of this monstrous, manipulative child. Then he grabs his bag and practically leaps into the train.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Knowing me, this will devolve into shippy nonsense. I don’t even know who to ship here


	3. Chapter 3

“The killer must have driven her to Lauriston Gardens. He could only keep her case by accident if it was in the car. Nobody could be seen with this case without drawing attention – particularly a man, which is statistically more likely – so obviously he’d feel compelled to get rid of it the moment he noticed he still had it. Wouldn’t have taken him more than five minutes to realize his mistake. I checked every back street wide enough for a car five minutes from Lauriston Gardens and anywhere you could dispose of a bulky object without being observed,” Sherlock explains rapid-fire, as John stares on still unmoved from his position by the desk.

 

“Took me less than an hour to find the right skip,” he finishes.

 

“Pink. You got all that because you realized the case would be pink?” John asks. He’s in awe, to be frank. Yet Sherlock doesn’t seem to realize what an amazing thing he’s doing. Says it’s obvious, and that everyone else is just an idiot.

 

“No, no, no, don’t look like that,” he says, almost consolingly. And John realizes he truly isn’t trying to be condescending about it; he’s used to this.

 

The world of Sherlock Holmes is truly something unusual, and John is so busy trying to wrap his head around this that he nearly misses the the implications of what he’s just done.

 

“Sorry, what are we doing? Did I just text a murderer?!”

 

The phone starts to ring.

 

.

 

The way Sherlock sweeps out of the flat and down the street with his ominous statements about the killer’s _hunting ground_ and the _fragility of genius_ John is expecting him to reveal something spectacular.

 

Instead he’s sitting at a tiny table in a small Italian restaurant owned by a former convict who thinks he’s dating this here maniac.

 

 _Apparently_ this is a stakeout.

 

“People don’t have arch-enemies,” John says. One doesn’t forget being abducted so easily.

 

It takes Sherlock a few moments to realize John is talking to him.

 

“I’m sorry?”

 

“In real life. There are no arch-enemies in real life. Doesn’t happen.”

 

“Mm.”

 

“So who did I meet?”

 

Sherlock sighs, dramatically, and rolls his eyes. Clearly, he doesn’t want to talk about it.

 

“I didn’t meet a crazy ex of yours, did I?” he asks. John doesn’t need this in his life right now, and he deserves to know, if he’s considering moving in with this guy.

 

Except Sherlock just shoots him the most repulsed expression ever.

 

“Okay, not a boyfriend then.”

 

“ _Good God, no.”_

 

John squints.

 

“ _Any_ crazy exes I should know about?”

 

“Life is not a comic book, John.”

 

“Yet you have an arch-nemesis.”

 

Another long, laborious sigh.

 

Then he stops.

 

“Why a taxi? Oh, that’s clever.”

 

John turns toward the window.

 

“That’s him?”

 

Sherlock’s out the door before John can get a proper answer.

 

.

 

They run straight into a drugs bust, and then Sherlock’s once again out the door. No one else notices, but John does. He’s about to do something dangerous, and it doesn’t feel right to let him go at it alone.

 

While everyone else is arguing, John slips out the door, then hails another cab to tail the one that’s just left Baker Street.

 

.

 

A familiar adrenaline courses through him as John runs down the halls of a quiet college building.

 

“Sherlock?” Stupid GPS. “Sherlock!”

 

John sees a light at the end of the hall and sprints toward it.

 

Wrong way: The light isn’t coming from the room, but through the window. He flips on a switch but only succeeds in turning one row of lights on - no matter, it allows for the perfect illumination to see through the window to the adjacent building, where Sherlock is standing with his back to John, facing down who must be the serial killer.

 

“Sherlock!”

 

He can’t hear him.

 

Instead, the detective - consulting detective, only one in the world - leans toward two small bottles sitting on the desk.

 

“What’s the point of being clever if you can’t prove it?” the dying cab driver wheedles. Sherlock keeps himself from rolling his eyes. As if he isn’t already immune to such taunts. Instead, he makes a closer inspection, then picks a bottle at random just to glean the man’s reaction.

 

He unscrews the bottle slowly, watching the killer mirror his actions. He gives nothing away. Sherlock takes the pill out.

 

Still nothing - they both move to ingest the pills -

 

-and the killer is flung back, hand to chest, a moment later spluttering on the floor.

 

Sherlock whips his head around - the light is on in the room behind theirs, but no one is there. Shit. Did he miscalculate?

 

Sherlock rushes around the table, immediately applying pressure in an effort to extend the man’s life. He’d hope for a spectacle of a trial, not a silly unseen duel in a dark college library.

 

“Your sponsor: Who was it? The one who told you about me - my _fan._ I want a name.”

 

“No,” the dying imbecile says weakly. Sherlock _does_ roll his eyes then. People were so stupidly loyal at the most inconvenient of times.

 

He shifts his hand, life-saving pressure turning to searing pain.

 

“You’re dying, but there’s still time to hurt you. Give me a name.”

 

He shakes his head, then gasps in pain.

 

“A. Name.”

 

Sherlock digs in.

 

“Moriarty!” he shouts with what’s left of his strained voice.

 

Sherlock takes a step back in surprise. A common enough surname. Real? Or a pseudonym?

 

Good god, he hopes it’s real, and not some other _‘M’_ hellbent on being _clever_.

 

.

 

Later, outside, Sherlock spots John and weaves through the crowd to avoid talking to Lestrade before he can get to him.

 

“You’ve just killed a man,” he says, quiet enough that only John can hear. John rears back in surprise.

 

“Need to get the powder burns out of your fingers. I don’t suppose you’d serve time for this, but let’s avoid the court case,” he adds, trailing off as he’s scanning the area for a familiar face. “Won’t do to give him any leverage, the relentless little brat.”

 

The two of them barely get to the end of the block when he spots it - a black car cruising by ever so slowly, as the tinted window in the back seat starts to roll down.

 

A young man squints out at them, and John startles.

 

“Sherlock. That’s him. That’s the man I was talking to you about.”

 

Sherlock is already grumbling as he strides toward the car.

 

“Mycroft Ansel Holmes, you get out of here,” he snaps.

 

“Public street, I can be here if I like,” John’s strange abductor replies. “More importantly, did you win?”

 

“Public safety is not about winning.” John makes his way over just in time to hear Sherlock say this the way someone says something they’ve repeated hundreds of times to a small child who doesn’t listen. He looks between the two, growing increasingly confused.

 

“Everything is about winning,” the man says, as if Sherlock’s just told a funny joke. “You would know, if you were keeping score, because that makes five cases you’ve solved this month, against my six.”

 

Sherlock throws his head back as if asking the heavens for deliverance from this perpetual nuisance.

 

“We are not doing this,” he says.

 

“Only because you’re afraid you’ll lose,” he shoots back.

 

“Mycroft Archibald Holmes, you stop this petty little game of yours immediately. People will suffer. And you know how that always upsets Mother,” he finishes hastily.

 

John’s eyes go wide.

 

“Holmes - Mother??” He looks between the both of them, searching for resemblance. “ _No._ Wait. He’s your _brother?”_

 

“ _I_ upset her? Me?” Mycroft scoffs. “It wasn’t _me_ who upset Mummy, _I_ never upset Mummy.”

 

Sherlock gives Mycroft a look, seething.

 

“Jesus,” John says with a relieved sort of laugh. “Here I thought he was some sort of criminal mastermind.”

 

“He practically is,” Sherlock mutters, which only makes Mycroft reel back in indignance.

 

“Criminal, indeed!” he huffs. “I’m a consultant, just like you.”

 

John blinks. “That’s what you meant by the cases.”

 

Mycroft smiles smugly. “Except Sherlock consults for the incompetent New Scotland Yard, and I consult for the Government.”

 

“The Government.”

 

“On classified matters.”

 

“Mycroft hacked his way into MI5 when he was 17 and they threw him into the Parliament basement rather than prison, to work off his sins,” Sherlock says flatly.

 

“I _logged_ into the secret service and noticed some discrepancies and they were _so impressed_ with what I found they requested I lend my genius-level _assistance_ ,” Mycroft corrects tetchily.

 

“Is...is your whole family like this?” John asks.

 

Mycroft turns a pleasant smile to John.

 

“Lovely to see you again this evening.”

 

“Uh-huh…”

 

Sherlock turns around with a snap of his coat.

 

“Go _home_ , Mycroft. And don’t start any wars just because you’re stuck in traffic. It’s your fault bringing an SUV to a street with a crime scene.”

 

“That was one time - and we stopped it before deployment!”

 

“Go home!”

 

Mycroft scowls as he watches the two of them stroll off together, spring in their step. The scowl somehow dissolves into something closer to a sulky pout a few moments later.

 

“Anthea,” he says, his phone lighting up with the voice recognition. “Upgrade surveillance on John Watson, home address: 221B Baker Street.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the next part is TGG, because Mycroft doesn't really have anything to do with the TBB episode - I might split it into two parts if it gets long  
> it, like this one, will still include many Mycroft-less scenes, because exasperated oldersibling!Sherlock deserves screentime too


	4. Chapter 4

Mycroft is a fat, lazy baby.

 

He learns to crawl long before the typical baby learns to crawl; Sherlock was the same. Except once Mycroft masters the skill, he patently refuses to crawl any further. 

 

No, instead, he just lies there on his tummy and turns his big, watery eyes and plump, cherubic cheeks to his big brother or the nearest adult, and makes a pitiful sort of “nnnnnnnn” sound until someone with far more motor capability than him bends down to scoop him up and ferry him toward his heart’s desire as he drools all over his new minion.

 

“You’re not always going to have all the adults at your beck and call, you know,” Sherlock tells him.

 

Mycroft smiles at Sherlock in response, and then slaps his drool-covered hand all over Sherlock’s face. 

 

.

 

“BORED!” Sherlock yells, punctuating his complaint with a gunshot to the wall. “Bored!”

 

John just stares on from the other end of the sitting room.

 

“What about that murder case, from Belarus?”

 

“Ugh. Child’s play. They’d solve it eventually, I won’t touch it. No, I only take cases that would otherwise go unsolved.”

 

“How would you know they’d go unsolved?” John is still surprised at some of the self-aggrandizing things Sherlock says so casually, except when he says it, it really is more fact than boasting.

 

“Because I  _ know _ , John. Most people are incredibly stupid.”

 

“So you’ve got to spend your time shooting up walls instead, then?”

 

Sherlock turns to face him, then nods toward the window.

 

“What do you see, John?”

 

John gives him a funny look, but obliges.

 

“Um. Well, someone’s out for their morning run.”

 

“Yes, and what do people running around on the sidewalks for no reason at all in the mornings signify?”

 

“Um...that they’re health conscious?”

 

“Gentrification, John! The morning jogger to pavement ratio  _ directly _ corresponds to the rents of any neighborhood and so to combat this I make sure to fire a gunshot every now and then to keep our lovely Baker Street affordable.”

 

John’s mouth drops open, but a moment later he narrows his eyes a Sherlock, not sure if he’s serious or not. Before he can verify, there is a knock at the door.

 

Sherlock does a sort of spin-flop and artfully drops himself into an armchair, so John is the one that goes for the door. 

 

“Is this Sherlock Holmes?” a middle-aged man in a dark gray suit asks.

 

John shows him in, and then to the “client’s chair,” as they’ve started calling it. He takes the seat.

 

Sherlock looks him up and down, assessing, as John moves to his own chair.

 

“You’re a spook,” Sherlock finally says. “I don’t take government jobs.”

 

“You help law enforcement, I’m not sure this is any different,” the man says.

 

Sherlock rolls his eyes. “I’m sure you have other in-house operatives to do your dirty work for you. I am strictly freelance, and in service to no one but the people.”

 

The man, undeterred, holds out a file.

 

“Andrew West, known as Westie to his friends, was a civil servant found dead on the tracks at Battersea Station this morning,” he says. When Sherlock makes no move to take the file, John waves it over and opens it.

 

“His head was smashed in.”

 

“He jumped?” John asks. 

 

The man gives him a wry smile.

 

“Not an accident, then,” John says. 

 

The man sighs and sits back into his seat.

 

“He was among others working on a new missile defense system - the Bruce-Partington program, and a copy of it had been on a flashdrive.”

 

“And it’s missing?” John interjects, skeptical. “Doesn’t seem very smart.”

 

“Regardless, it is classified, and now it is gone. We can’t risk this being in the wrong hands,” the man says seriously. He turns to Sherlock. “I have it on good authority you’re the best detective in the nation.”

 

“Consulting detective,” Sherlock reflexively corrects. 

 

“This could be catastrophic,” the man says. Then he gets up, and nods towards the file. “Everything you need is in there. The people need you, Sherlock Holmes.”

 

Sherlock shoots him a strange look as he says that, but he’s not looking because he’s already out the door.

 

John blinks at him, holding out the file.

 

“You’ve nothing else on - you’ve already turned down all the cases. And missing missile plans - that’s big, isn’t it?”

 

Sherlock just scowls, and turns away with a huff.

 

Before he can answer, his phone starts to buzz.

 

“It’s Lestrade,” Sherlock says. “Hello?”

 

He’s out the door before John can hear what Lestrade says next. 

 

And then it’s just John and a file full of government secrets, in an empty flat.

 

Another buzz sounds, and John looks around before patting his pockets down looking for his own phone. 

 

A single text:

 

_ Hurry down, cab’s already here. SH _

 

.

 

Sherlock and John are sitting in Lestrade’s office facing his desk, in those uncomfortable, metal-framed chairs that make John kind of feels like he’s been called into the headmaster’s office due to a schoolyard brawl.

 

They stare down at a single, sealed white envelope.

 

“The entire building was blown up - nothing left but this,” Lestrade explains, standing over them.

 

“Nothing left but an envelope?” John asks skeptically.

 

“It was inside a strong box - a very strong box,” Lestrade amends.

 

Sherlock narrows his eyes.

 

“We’ve already x-rayed it. If that’s what you’re trying to do,” Lestrade says. Sherlock rolls his eyes, and reaches for the envelope.

 

He mutters to himself as he examines the neat penmanship and heavy stationery, then grabs the letter opener on Lestrade’s desk to slice it open.

 

One pink iPhone.

 

“That’s - from the case,” John stutters.

 

“Not the same phone, obviously,” Sherlock says, turning the phone in his hand, examining it at eye-level. “Made to look like the same phone.”

 

_ “You have one message.” _

 

“There we go.”

 

They all lean in, quiet, waiting to hear.

 

Except there is no message: just the sound of five pips - four short, one long. 

 

Sherlock frowns, turning the phone again and swiping through it. The phone is brand new, with nothing on the home screen but a gallery app. He opens it to find a picture of a empty room with a fireplace and peeling wallpaper. 

 

“What the hell are we supposed to make of that? An estate agent’s photo and the bloody Greenwich pips!” Lestrade says. 

 

“I know this place,” Sherlock says quietly, brows furrowed, trying to remember.

 

“What?” John asks.

 

He snaps back to reality, looking at the two of them.

 

“Some secret societies used to send dried melon seeds, orange pips, things like that. Five pips. They’re warning us it’s gonna happen again,” Sherlock explains.

 

Then he leaps to his feet and sweeps out the door.

 

“Sherlock!” John calls out, exasperated by his pace once again.

 

“Wait,  _ what’s _ going to happen again?” John asks.

 

Sherlock doesn’t even slow his pace to raise his hands dramatically.

 

“Boom!” he says. 

 

.

 

They’re quiet - no, pensive - in the cab.

 

“The world doesn’t revolve around you, you know,” John says out of nowhere.

 

“No,” Sherlock remarks sarcastically. “It revolves around the sun, same as Pluto, as you’ve so enlightened me and all of the readers of your blog - are we still on about the solar system?”

 

“Not that,” John says, still exasperated. “The running around and expecting the world to follow, everyone to fall in line, that sort of thing. Hell, you get into cabs and expect the driver to know where you’re heading without your even telling them.”

 

Sherlock gives him a funny look.

 

“I don’t do that,” he protests innocently.

 

John’s expression is incredulous. 

 

.

 

Case in point, moments later he barges into 221C Baker Street, and grabs a key from the little shelf near the door without so much as a word to Mrs. Hudson.

 

“Sherlock, dear, what’s the matter?”

 

“Just taking a look at 221A,” he says without looking at her, already out the door.

 

Mrs. Hudson ends up following behind Lestrade who is following behind John, who is still following Sherlock despite his earlier complaint, down the steps and into the flat. 

 

“I can’t get anyone interested in this flat,” she explains, presumably to John and the good detective. “It’s the damp, I expect. That’s the curse of basements.”

 

“It’s been opened recently,” Sherlock announces, with a look at the lock, before darting further into the flat.

 

“No, that’s impossible, I’ve the only key,” Mrs. Hudson calls after them. 

 

When John catches up, he finds Sherlock standing in the middle of a room looking exactly the same as the one in the photo. There are a pair of trainers placed in the center, and Sherlock gingerly picks them up. 

 

“Careful, he’s a bomber, remember,” John nearly shouts.

 

Sherlock glances at him, and then the phone rings. He reaches into his pocket and, seeing the blocked number, answers the call.

 

“Yes,” Sherlock says. They can hear a loud and uneven breath on the other line, and they wait. 

 

“H-hello, sexy.” A hiccup. The speaker is clearly distressed. Tearful now. “I’ve sent you a little - puzzle -” a sharp inhale “-just to say hi.”

 

“You’re crying,” Sherlock says. “Why are you crying?”

 

“I-I’m not crying.” She clearly sounds as if she is. “I’m typing. And this…....stupid bitch….is ...reading it out.”

 

Sherlock thinks, then blinks with epiphany.

 

“Moriarty,” he say. A beat - then the line goes dead. 

 

John stares. Lestrade stares. Mrs. Hudson looks a bit distressed.

 

“Moriarty? Who’s Moriarty?” Lestrade asks. 

 

“What just happened?” John says, to the room at large, to himself. 

 

Sherlock frowns, still staring at the phone. Then it buzzes again with a new text.

 

“I’d scared him off,” he says, sounding surprised. “Wasn’t expecting that, then.”

 

“Twelve hours to solve my puzzle, Sherlock, or I’m going to be so naughty,” Sherlock reads aloud in monotone. 

 

.

 

Back in their own flat, the trainers sit atop the forgotten file on Andrew West. John throws disconcerting looks at it - the trainers and the file alternatively.

 

“Oh, I’d completely forgotten about the missile plans,” he says, just a bit distressed.

 

“Carl Powers,” Sherlock says in lieu of a response or reply. He’s got his hands folded over his violin, eyes faraway, fingers idly plucking at strings every now and then.

 

“What?”

 

“Died just a child - champion swimmer at a school sport tournament,” Sherlock says, as if by recall. “ _ Yet he drowned. _ In a pool, no less.”

 

John frowns, but sits back to take in the story.

 

“Something fishy about it?”

 

“Yes. Nobody thought so - except me. I was only 10 - read about it in the papers. He’d had a sort of fit in the water, dead before they could get him out. Something struck me from the reports; not just the newspapers, but the police reports. They never found his shoes.”

 

A pregnant pause.

 

They both look down at the trainers. 

 

.

 

“Age 27, a clerk at Vauxhall Cross, MI6,” John reads quietly to himself. “Involved in the Bruce-Partington program in a  _ minor _ capacity. Security check, check, check - no terrorist affiliations … last seen by his fiancee at 10:30. The day before.”

 

John glances at Sherlock, who has converted their kitchen table to a lab, performing some sort of examination or experiment on the trainers. He looks back down at the file.

 

“Had a Oyster card on him, but it wasn’t used.”

 

He reads the rest quietly.

 

“Sherlock,” John finally says. Sherlock doesn’t bother looking up. “I’m going to um - just head out for a bit of fresh air.”

 

Sherlock says nothing as John leaves.

 

.

 

John barely gets two blocks in the direction of the trains so he can check out Battersea Station when a big, black, government-issue SUV pulls up in front of him, right into the sidewalk.

 

“JESUS CHRIST.” John jumps back out of the way just in the nick of time. 

 

The back window rolls down to reveal none other than Mycroft. Then the door pops open.

 

“John Watson, get in the car.”

 

.

 

John fidgets, seated across Mycroft at a too-big table in the center of a  _ very _ upscale restaurant, with high ceilings, and soft music softening the atmosphere in the background.

 

He clears his throat.

 

“Another abduction, so soon?” he asks.

 

Mycroft just smiles, tucking his napkin in.

 

“This? This is just lunch,” Mycroft says.

 

John glances around the room, feeling very much underdressed. Mycroft, on the other hand, is wearing a three piece suit that would look old timey even on someone several years his senior.

 

“Give a guy a little notice beforehand next time, will you?” he mutters. Mycroft smiles in a way that says he very much will not do that. 

 

It also doesn’t escape John’s notice that at every window and exit stands a solid looking security detail.

 

“So,” John says. “Are they all here for you?”

 

Mycroft follows his gaze. “Oh, them? Of course not. Plenty of foreign dignitaries dine here, security is of the utmost importance. Only about half of them are here for me.”

 

“Practically house arrest,” John says, pleased when it looks like it’s hit a nerve.

 

“So, Moriarty,” Mycroft says. “Is Sherlock having fun?”

 

He looks skeptical, and John studies for a moment, trying to figure out why.

 

Oh, he’s wrong. Mycroft isn’t suspicious, he’s worried.

 

“ _ Oh. _ So when you said you were concerned…”

 

“Of course I’m concerned.” Mycroft bristles. A waiter arrives at the table and puts down two plates, despite the fact that they haven’t ordered. 

 

John’s about to tuck in when he realizes - 

 

“How did you know about Moriarty?” he accuses.

 

Mycroft blinks. 

 

“The government taps your flat,” Mycroft says. “And I work for the government. Ergo, I’ve copies of all of yours, and Sherlock’s, correspondence.”

 

John stares back, unsure whether Mycroft’s bluffing.

 

“Well?”

 

“Well what?”

 

“Well, how’s it going?”

 

“Fine, thank you very much.”

 

“Not  _ you _ , my brother! And his new enemy.”

 

“What, are you jealous?” John asks. He’s just joking, but Mycroft bristles,  _ again,  _ and, Jesus, this kid really is something.

 

“It’s fine. Too much, maybe.”

 

“And what about the missile plans retrieval? Why are you going and not him?”

 

“How did you- nevermind.”

 

Mycroft purses his lips.

 

“So he’s preoccupied with this  _ Moriarty _ , then.”

 

“Yep,” John replies, popping the p, just a tad bitter, “we could say that.”

 

John might have been a bit touchy about the idea, but Mycroft flat out pushes his dish away, abruptly enough that John startles. He relaxes a bit when he sees Mycroft take out his cell phone.

 

“Anthea,” he says into the little device, sounding just a little petulant, “nix that hit we talked about, will you?”

 

John’s jaw drops.

 

“I’m sorry, did you just-”

 

“Done,” a voice chirps back from the phone. “Anything else you need, sir?”

 

John chokes back a laugh at the idea of someone Mycroft’s age a  _ sir. _

 

“That will be all, thank you.”

 

Then he drops the phone to the table with a huff, and waves a waiter over.

 

“I’d like to see the dessert menu,” Mycroft says.

 

“ _ Hold on _ ,” John demands, angry. “You know who this Moriarty is, and you’re not doing anything to stop him?”

 

Mycroft gives him a sullen look.

 

“You’re the one who says Sherlock’s busy with him,” Mycroft says.

 

“He’s running around London, blowing things up! Isn’t  _ the government _ concerned?” 

 

Mycroft just gives him a flat look.

 

“Finish your fish, John.”

 

.

 

Sherlock looks up once John is out the door, then takes a seat on the sofa, pulling his laptop open. He fires up his website - the counter in the corner showing 39 total pageviews.

 

“Fan of mine, was it?”

 

He types a new post:  _ FOUND. Pair of trainers belonging to Carl Powers (1978-1989). Botulinum toxin still present. Apply 221b Baker St. _

 

“The boy had eczema, took medicine for it,” Sherlock says to himself. “Clostridium botulinum administered via his medicated cream - takes effect during a swim meet - boom, drowned.”

 

He waits.

 

The phone rings - Sherlock answers it before the first ring is even through.

 

“Well done, you.” It’s the same woman. “Come and get me.”

 

.

 

Sherlock watches as the bomb squad retrieve the woman from her vehicle, and a moment later he hears the sound of footfalls. He turns to see John run up.

 

“You did it,” John says, something close to happy surprise coloring his voice. Sherlock can’t stop him from raising an eyebrow in surprise. He’d expected more exasperation, and possibly misplaced malice at his proceeding on his own.

 

“She’s safe,” Sherlock confirms. 

 

Lestrade strides over to them, a pager in one raised, gloved hand.

 

“Found this on the dash,” he says. “The bomber used this to give her instructions - on what to say to you.”

 

Sherlock tilts his head, looking intently at the pager.

 

“Huh,” he says. The phone rings again.

 

“Why would anyone  _ do _ this?” John asks, out of frustration.

 

Sherlock frowns down at the phone - the caller hung up before he could answer it.

 

A notification pops up a moment later:  _ You have one new message. _

 

“Four pips,” Sherlock says. And the following voicemail plays, indeed, four pips. 

 

Then an anonymous text message delivers one new photo: a car door and license plate. Sherlock tilts the phone toward Lestrade.

 

“I’ll ask Donovan to run it,” he says. 

 

A phone rings in the background, and Sherlock straightens, looking around.

 

“The audacity,” he marvels, under his breath. He strides over to an ambulance where a paramedic, blinking rapidly at him, answers the vehicle’s phone before holding it out toward Sherlock’s outstretched hand. 

 

“It’s for you,” he supplies needlessly. 

 

Sherlock answers it.

 

“Yes?”

 

“It’s okay that you’ve gone to the police,” says the voice on the other line - male, young, London accent, shaky, but not as much as the other woman.

 

“Oh, is it? I’m so glad,” Sherlock says.

 

“But - don’t rely on them,” the man reads. “Clever you, guessing about Carl Powers. All on your own, too.”

 

Sherlock frowns, ignoring the paramedic who is trying to disappear back into his seat, feeling as if he is intruding.

 

“I never liked him,” the man continues to read. “Carl laughed at me, so I stopped him laughing.”

 

“And we’ll all have a laugh when this is over and done, shall we?” Sherlock asks quietly.

 

“Ha ha. You solved my last puzzle in nine hours - this time you have eight.” The line goes dead. 

 

Sherlock glances down at the frightened paramedic.

 

“Please tell me you traced that,” he says.

 

.

 

On the riverbank, the police find an abandoned vehicle matching the one in the photo. The driver’s seat is coated with blood found to match the name of the man who had rented the car, just the day before.

 

“No body,” Sherlock says. Donovan says something but he ignores it, turning his attention instead to a crying woman past the crime tape.

 

“Sherlock Holmes. Very old friend of your husband’s,” he says, expression switching from cold to close to tears in a moment. 

 

“I’m sorry, who? I don’t think he ever mentioned you,” she says, shaking his hand anyway.

 

“Oh, he  _ must  _ have done. This is ... this is horrible, isn’t it?”

 

She gapes at him, suspicious.

 

“I just can’t believe it. I only saw him the other day. Same old Ian – not a care in the world,” Sherlock continues.

 

“Sorry, but my husband has been depressed for months. Who  _ are  _ you?”

 

“Really strange that he hired a car,” Sherlock says, stopping to sniffle. He even wipes away snot on the back of his hand. “Wh-why would he do that? It’s a bit suspicious, isn’t it?”

 

“No, it isn’t. He forgot to renew the tax on the car, that’s all.”

 

“Oh, well that was Ian!”

 

“No it wasn’t!”

 

Sherlock ducks back under the crime tape, putting distance between them immediately.

 

“Excuse me! Who are you?” Mrs. Monkford calls after him, before turning to an officer. “Who was that?”

 

John clears his throat, facing away from the woman as he approaches Sherlock’s side.

 

“Why did you lie to her?”

 

Sherlock tucks away a handkerchief.

 

“People don’t like giving away information, but they  _ love _ to contradict you,” he says. “Past tense, did you notice?”

 

.

 

They make a visit to the car dealership and it’s very much the same - Sherlock lies, then sweeps out of the place with a spring in the step declaring the manager they spoke to a liar.

 

Before they reach the lab, there is another call.

 

“The clue’s in the name. Janus Cars.”

 

Sherlock hums in response. “Oh, a clue. How very kind of you.” Sherlock’s clearly in a good mood.

 

“You’re welcome, darling.”

 

“Now, why would you be giving me a clue?”

 

“Why does anyone do anything? Because I’m bored. We were made for each other, Sherlock.”

 

“I regret your words lose much of their effect, translated without inflection like this.”

 

“Patience.”

 

The line goes dead.

 

John eyes him for several moments, before pursing his lips and speaking up. 

 

“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”

 

Sherlock stops. He even turns around, looking John face to face.

 

“Enjoying what?”

 

“The running around, outsmarting the bomber. Solving these little cases he’s nudged your way.”

 

“Aren’t you?”

 

John flusters. Something about this is different, but he can’t quite put his finger on what. 

 

“All for a safer London,” Sherlock remarks, nearly unheard, as he continues with a little skip.

 

He calls Lestrade to meet them at the lab, and by the time the detective arrives, Sherlock’s already examined the blood.

 

“How much blood?” he asks, and John marvels that he’s picked up enough to tell that by the tone of Sherlock’s question, he already knows the answer.

 

“About a pint,” Lestrade starts.

 

“Exactly a pint,” Sherlock corrects. He explains the collusion - how the car dealer and wife were both in on it, how Ian Monkford had been relocated, the blood a frozen pint that had previously been stored.

 

“Conclusion: he’d just come back from settling Ian Monkford into his new life in Colombia. Mrs Monkford cashes in the life insurance and she splits it with Janus Cars,” Sherlock says. “Now go and arrest them, Inspector. That’s what you do best.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> stole the gentrification joke off twitter


	5. Chapter 5

.

 

Case solved, bomb victim saved, the two flatmates have a quiet, cozy next morning at home. John is watching crap telly when the phone rings, and Sherlock picks up.

 

He says nothing, displeased that Moriarty’s been using only borrowed voices to speak to him.

 

“This one is a bit - defective. Sorry.” And old woman, heavy accent. “She’s blind. This is - a funny one.”

 

Sherlock raises an eyebrow, but still doesn’t say anything. John glances over and frowns.

 

“I’ll give you 12 hours.”

 

“Twelve! Up from eight?” Sherlock says with over-exaggerated drama. “Whyever would you do that?”

 

“I like … to watch you dance.”

 

“Well! It’s only polite for you to ask a turn, then.”

 

The line goes dead, and Sherlock puts the phone away, eyes still on the television screen. 

 

Breaking News: Connie Price, popular talk show host, is found dead. 

 

.

 

Sherlock stares at the body.

 

“Fell in the garden, scratched by a rusty nail,” he says, gesturing to a nasty wound.  “Tetanus bacteria enters the bloodstream. Dead now for two days.” 

 

He frowns. “No, too simple.” He picks up a magnifying glass and leans over the body.

 

John looks over too.

 

“Bacteria had been incubating some eight, ten days,” John says. 

 

Sherlock glances at the wound.

 

“And the cut?”

 

John blinks.

 

“Clean - and fresh. It was made later,” he realizes.

 

Lestrade claps his hands. 

 

“Homicide after all,” he says. “Well, we’ll go interview the brother, the assistant-”

 

“She was getting botox injections,” Sherlock interjects. He pulls out the magnifying glass again to examine her forehead.

 

“Well, that’s not unusual - she was in showbiz.”

 

“No,” Sherlock says. “Botox - derived from botulinum.”

 

They stare.

 

“Clostridium botulinum,” he repeats.

 

“Oh,” John says.

 

“Oh is correct.” Sherlock nods. “Must’ve been given a fatal dose.”

 

“Wait, wait,” John says, holding his hands up. “Back up - you got all that from seeing, what, dots on her forehead?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Well, then, you can’t be certain.”

 

“Oh, but I can. I can be, because I know who it is we’re dealing with: someone who thinks himself very clever.”

 

He turns to Lestrade. “Find out who was administering it, and you’ll have the killer.”

 

.

 

It doesn’t even take an hour for Lestrade to text Sherlock telling him he was right (he’s always right). Connie Prince’s brother had kept a houseboy, who’d gotten rid of her in order to prevent the brother from losing his inheritance. 

 

Sherlock borrows a computer in the adjacent lab and pulls up his website. A minute later, the phone rings.

 

“Help me.”

 

The hairs on the back of his neck raise.

 

“That’s not the script,” Sherlock says without thinking. But he’s right, it’s not. It’s dangerous.

 

“Where are you?” he asks, trying to nudge the old woman, the hostage, back on track.

 

“His voice…”

 

“ _ No. _ No,” Sherlock insists.

 

“He was so, his voice sounded so - soft.”

 

He hears a crack, and then the line goes dead. 

 

John looks up just in time to see Sherlock steel his angry expression into something cold and impassive. The phone buzzes with a text.

 

_ That was quick. _

_ Aren’t you having fun? xx _

 

.

 

“Just once, he put himself in the firing line,” Sherlock muses, tapping away on his laptop.

 

“What?” John turns to him, setting his plate on the finally cleared kitchen table.

 

“The murder, the relocation,” Sherlock waves a hand dismissively. “He organizes these things, but no one ever has direct contact.” 

 

“Usually,” he continues, something dawning in his eyes, “he must stay above it all.”

 

“He,” John repeats. “Carl Powers’s killer.”

 

Sherlock looks up from his computer.

 

“Any progress?”

 

Sherlock glances back down at his research.

 

“All the living classmates check out spotless. Same with the class competing against his team that day. No Moriarty.”

 

“What if the killer was older?” John asks. 

 

Sherlock hums, and tilts his head. 

 

“Why is he doing this with you?” John asks. 

 

Sherlock raises an eyebrow.

 

“This is starting to sound like an interrogation.”

 

John bristles, then takes a seat.

 

Sherlock presses his fingers together.

 

“He’s a fan of mine,” he says.

 

John squints at him.

 

“Really? How’d he even know about you?”

 

“My website, of course.”

 

“Your website?” John laughs. “No one reads your website.” 

 

Sherlock frowns. 

 

“A whole forty people have read it this past month, and left enlightened to the art and science of deduction. I understand. As a criminal of a certain caliber, I, too, would want the world’s preeminent expert on deduction to work my cases, rather than, say, a bumbling Scotland Yard sergeant who might bollocks it up and write it up as negligence or manslaughter - sentencing a  _ masterpiece  _ to a reputation as  _ accident _ for posterity.”

 

“Amazing.”

 

“Thank you.”

 

“No, I mean how you manage to be so spectacularly ignorant of certain things when you’re so wildly knowledgeable about others.” John fights a smile as Sherlock squints at him. 

 

“Is that an insult?”

 

“Forty hits!”

 

“Laugh if you’d like, but that’s forty people whose lives I’ve changed for the better.”

 

“No, no, forty  _ hits _ , that’s forty times the website has been opened. And thirty of them were Mycroft.”

 

“How do you know it was Mycroft.”

 

“He told me himself, over lunch.”

 

Sherlock’s expression turns dark. “That little spy.” 

 

“I didn’t have a choice! He nearly ran me over.”

 

“In any case, Carl Powers was my first,” Sherlock muses. Then he adds, “and likely his too… Moriarty.”

 

The phone rings - more pips. It’s a body and a missing person’s case this time.

 

.

 

By now, John is not even surprised when Sherlock stops the cab to talk to a homeless girl on the side of the street.

 

“Any change?”

 

“What for?”

 

“Cup of tea, of course.”

 

They trade some bills and a piece of paper. It’s all so cloak and dagger John resists the need to pinch himself.

 

“What are you doing?”

 

Sherlock gives him a tiny smile.

 

“Investing.”

 

.

 

“I’ve a network,” Sherlock tells him later.

 

“Of, what, homeless people?”

 

Sherlock hums vaguely in response.

 

“My eyes and ears all over the city.”

 

Eyes and ears - John stops in his tracks - the surveillance. 

 

“What about Mycroft?” he asks, jogging a bit to catch up again. Sherlock practically glowers at him.

 

“What  _ about _ Mycroft?” Sherlock’s eyes then widen as he realizes - and he stomps off.

 

“Why don’t you ask him for-”

 

“No.”

 

“I’m sure he’d be happy to-”

 

_ “No.” _

 

John narrows his eyes at Sherlock.

 

“Is this some kind of sibling rivalry thing? Because someone has died, Sherlock, and so if it is, well, time to put that all aside.”

 

Sherlock gives John a long look.

 

“Mycroft may look and act like some sort of impressive spymaster, but what he really is is a spoiled child. Do  _ not _ divulge information about cases with him,  _ ever _ again,” Sherlock says before sweeping off again. 

 

John processes the words, then snorts.

 

“Oh my god, you - you’re concerned too!”

 

“What?”

 

“Nothing, nothing.”

 

.

 

They end up in a brawl with a massive man, taken down at the floor of a planetarium as their attacker gets away.

 

The two take a moment to catch their breath.

 

.

 

“It’s a fake. It  _ has _ to be,” Sherlock says.

 

He stands, John, Lestrade, and the gallery curator standing behind him.

 

Sherlock leans in toward the painting on the gallery wall, and the curator flinches with his close proximity.

 

They face the storied lost Vermeer, recently restored for exhibition. 

 

“That painting has been subjected to every test known to science,” the curator insists.

 

“A very  _ good _ fake then,” Sherlock amends, before eyeing her curiously. “But you know that, don’t you? You’re in on this.”

 

She turns to Lestrade to snap, “Inspector, my time is being wasted. Would you mind showing yourself and your friends out?”

 

The phone rings.

 

“The painting’s a fake,” Sherlock says. “That’s why Woodbridge and Cairns were killed.”

 

Silence.

 

“Oh come on!” Sherlock shouts. He sounds annoyed now, angry even. “Proving it’s just the detail. The painting is a fake. I’ve solved it! That’s the answer. That’s why they were killed.”

 

Still, silence.

 

“Okay, I’ll prove it. Give me time. Will you give me time?”

 

There’s a shaky breath, and then the word “Ten.”

 

“It’s a kid,” Lestrade says, eyes wide. “Oh God, it’s a  _ kid!” _

 

Sherlock hands the phone to him, closing off his expression once again and stepping up to the painting. He glances at the curator once.

 

“He’ll die, if you don’t tell me why the painting’s a fake.” She flinches. “No, nevermind, don’t tell me.  _ I’ve _ got to figure it out.”

 

“Oh!” He says, voice suddenly full of delight again. Sherlock pulls out his own phone, typing quickly. “Beautiful.”

 

“What?” Lestrade demands. They’re already at five.

 

Sherlock grabs the pink iPhone from his hand instead of answering.

 

“The Van Buren Supernova!”

 

Silence.

 

“Please. Is somebody there?” The boy’s voice. Sherlock hands the phone back to Lestrade without looking.

 

To John, he says. “The exploding star - appeared in the sky only in 1858.”

 

“So how could it have been painted in the 1640s?” John adds, in awe yet again. 

 

.

 

The curator confesses a  _ Moriarty _ helped orchestrate the fraud. But they already knew that. Sherlock sweeps out of the police station, ignoring Lestrade’s questions about this Moriarty, John at his heels yet again. They stop in front of a residential building, where Sherlock immediately sets to breaking and entering.

 

“Sherlock! What if there’s someone in?”

 

“There isn’t”

 

“Jesus!”

 

It’s not until they’re in that John even questions - “Where are we?”

 

“Brother of West’s fiancée.”

 

John looks at him in surprise. “Thought you’d forgot about that.”

 

“I don’t forget things.”

 

“You forgot Pluto was a planet,” John mutters under his breath. 

 

“Joe Harrison stole the flash drive, and killed West,” Sherlock says, giving the flat a once over.

 

“Why?”

 

“Let’s ask him.”

 

The front door clicks - and John grabs his gun.

 

.

 

Sherlock is oddly content when they get home. 

 

Sherlock in his natural habitat is either tearing through the flat, throwing criticisms at every social ill under the sun - a negative mood - or magnanimously arrogant about his capabilities - a positive mood.

 

John knows an outwardly content Sherlock is a plotting Sherlock - but he doesn’t let Sherlock know he’s onto the fact. 

 

“Well,” John says, standing. “I’m going to be over at Sarah’s. She’s fine letting me stay over, and what with the heat here and all…”

 

Sherlock hums noncommittally, barely giving John a second glance as he’s out the door. 

 

John lied - he doesn’t think Sherlock’s realized. He knows Sherlock’s opinion on the matter, but still - he thinks it’s time to call Mycroft.

 

He doesn’t make it that far.

 

.

 

_ Found. The Bruce-Partington plans. Please collect. The pool. Midnight. _

 

“Brought you a little getting-to-know-you present,” Sherlock says, his voice nearly echoing in the empty room. He walks slowly out into the middle, where he can easily be seen. “That’s what it’s all been for, hasn’t it? All your little puzzles; making me dance – all to distract me from this.”

 

Sherlock brandishes the flash drive with the missile plans, turning in a slow circle. A door creaks behind him, he spins toward it.

 

John steps into view, hands in the pockets of his hooded parka.

 

“Evening,” John says, expression closed.

 

Sherlock’s stunned into silence.

 

“This is a turn-up, isn’t it, Sherlock?” John continues. “Bet you never saw  _ this _ coming.”

 

Sherlock wipes his expression blank; he takes a step toward John, then another.

 

A red dot appears on John’s chest.

 

“What would you like me to - make him say next?” John says.

 

Sherlock’s eyes widen. He tilts his head slightly to the side, regarding the scene before him with some marvel. He looks almost serene.

 

“Gottle o’ geer ... gottle o’ geer ... gottle o’ geer,” John recites. When it gets no reaction out of Sherlock, he switches gears. “Nice touch, this: the pool where little Carl died. I stopped him.”

 

John flinches.

 

“I can stop John Watson too. Stop his heart.”

 

Sherlock looks over his shoulder, narrowing his eyes in the direction of the darkened bleachers, before turning back to John.

 

“Where are you?” Sherlock asks, faux, overdone disappointment in his voice. “I thought you promised me a dance.”

 

A footstep from the deep end side of the pool catches his attention. Sherlock turns, and sees a sharply dressed man stroll out the door.

 

“Is that a British Army Browning L9A1 in your pocket?” he asks in a soft, Irish lilt. “Or are you just happy to see me?”

 

“Both.” Sherlock pulls the gun with a smile. It’s forced.

 

“Jim Moriarty,” the man introduces himself. “Hi!”

 

Sherlock’s eyes flicker toward John and back. The laser sight is still there.

 

“Oh, don’t be silly,” Jim says. “Someone else is holding the rifle, I don’t like getting my hands dirty.”

 

Sherlock frowns, then takes a step toward Jim. 

 

“I’ve given you a glimpse, Sherlock, just a teensy glimpse of what I’ve got going on out there in the big bad world. I’m a specialist, you see - like you!”

 

Sherlock grimaces at the phrasing, then continues forward down the pool. 

 

“Consulting criminal,” he says. “Brilliant.”

 

It’s a mixture of genuine admiration and infinite exasperation. Moriarty doesn’t seem to catch it. 

 

“Isn’t it?” he says instead, pleased. “No one ever gets to me, and no one ever will.”

 

Sherlock makes a face, gestures minutely to himself.

 

“You’ve come the closest,” Moriarty admonishes. “And now you’re in my way.”

 

“Thank you,” Sherlock says, touched.

 

“Didn’t mean it as a compliment.”

 

Sherlock smiles, it’s genuine this time. “Yes, you did.”

 

“Yeah, okay, I did.” Moriarty shrugs, as if to say, you caught me! “But the flirting’s over now, Sherlock. I’ve shown you what I can do. I cut loose all those people, all those little problems, even 30 million quid just to get you to come out and play.”

 

Sherlock approaches slowly, and Moriarty lets him. Sherlock lowers the gun to hold up the flash drive. 

 

“What’s this?” Moriarty says, exaggerated surprise.

 

“Take it,” Sherlock says. “Missile plans.”

 

“Thank you!”

 

The drive is snatched out of Sherlock’s fingers, but not by Moriarty.

 

He whirls around, caught off guard by the newcomer behind him. 

 

Mycroft, just a step or two from the door, smiles at the both of them.

 

Sherlock closes his eyes briefly, breathing slowly through his nose, trying to stave off a migraine. And, though he won’t admit it, for just one moment, his blood ran cold. 

 

“Of course. Not MI5, was he? Just some government butler dressed in a spook’s suit,” Sherlock mutters. “Should have known. Lazy brat.”

 

“I prefer ‘efficient,’” Mycroft corrects.

 

Moriarty stares at him, face blank with fury.

 

“And who might this be?”

 

Mycroft offers his hand politely, and introduces himself.

 

“Mycroft Holmes, pleased to meet you,” he says. 

 

Moriarty’s head snaps toward Sherlock at the surname, thinking this some trick.

 

“ _ Mycroft _ Holmes, there’s no record of any  _ Mycroft Holmes _ ,” Moriarty says.

 

“I’m his brother,” Mycroft supplies helpfully. 

 

“His  _ what. _ ”

 

Sherlock has practically given up. At this point, he supposes he may be done with life. He’s had a good run.

 

He sighs noisily, gesturing impatiently with the pistol. “That’s because the government erased them all when they sentenced the monstrous brat to a lifetime of servitude.”

 

Mycroft gives him a very flat look. “Stop  _ telling everyone _ that.” 

 

He turns back to Moriarty. “But it’s true. I can even tell you all the embarrassing stories about Sherlock, as a child,” Mycroft adds, to which Moriarty looks like he is just  _ slightly  _ considering it.

 

“If what you’re saying is true,” he muses, “I might make you a very rich man.”

 

Mycroft smirks.

 

“Let him go, Moriarty,” Sherlock says in clipped tones, exasperation warring with brotherly concern. “He’s just a child. We’ll settle this, you and me.”

 

“I’m not a child!” Mycroft interjects, barely stopping himself from stomping his foot childishly. Moriarty looks between the two with increasing confusion. John watches on from the other side of the pool with immense trepidation. He itches to intervene while they’re distracted, but the red dot on his chest has not moved. 

 

“You’d barely be allowed to buy alcohol in the States, Mycroft. You are a  _ child _ ,” Sherlock snaps.

 

Mycroft turns to Moriarty. “I am, incidentally, also a consultant.”

 

“Mycroft  _ Alexander Holmes,  _ stop  _ fraternizing with the enemy!” _

 

“I can associate with whomever I like!”

 

Moriarty grins, but there’s a hard glint in his eye. He is so confused right now. But, if he can’t follow the conversation, he can at least relish in the madness.

 

“You will  _ leave _ the premises, or I will make you,” Sherlock hisses.

 

“Make me?! I’ll tell Mummy you pulled a gun on me.”

 

At this point, it doesn’t sound all that bad an idea to Sherlock.

 

“Family spat,” Moriarty murmurs. “How  _ lovely.” _

 

“Well, unfortunately,  _ none _ of you are leaving here, not alive,” Moriarty snaps. He turns on his heel, meaning to head out the door, when Mycroft steps in his path.

 

“I wouldn’t do that,” Mycroft says, eyes wide. He nods toward Moriarty’s chest.

 

There’s another red dot.

 

“What-” Moriarty’s gaze snaps up, toward the darkened bleachers. Genuine surprise overtakes him for what must be the first time in a long while.

 

“Your man? Oh, he’s down,” Mycroft says. “It’s just Anthea up there now with a bunch of laser pointers. Or rifles! I’m not sure, we didn’t discuss this in detail.”

 

As if to prove his point, a second dot appears on Moriarty’s head. Then the dot on John’s chest draws figure-eights. 

 

“Oh right! Dr. Watson,” Mycroft says, as if just remembering. 

 

John takes a shuddery breath, and starts unstrapping the vest, too close to relief to bother feeling slighted by the younger Holmes. 

 

Moriarty give Mycroft a curious look, then sidesteps him neatly. The red dots follow.

 

“I’m going to walk out of here now, Mycroft Holmes,” he says quietly, “and you’re going to let me.”

 

“And why would I do that?”

 

“Because,” Moriarty says, quirking a tiny smile. “Your brother will be  _ very cross _ with you, if you don’t.”

 

Mycroft frowns, obviously sensing some truth in that. 

 

“And,” Moriarty adds in stage whisper, “think of how upset  _ Mummy _ would be if one of you got blood on the other’s hands.”

 

Moriarty gives Sherlock a last glance, pausing meaningfully on the gun, as if to call his bluff too. 

 

“You’re going to burn for this, Sherlock,” Moriarty adds quietly. 

 

Mycroft throws Sherlock an apprehensive look, and in that moment, Moriarty is gone.

 

By the time John’s run over, Sherlock’s lowered his gun.

 

“You let him go,” John says, disbelieving. 

 

Sherlock just glares at Mycroft, still seething.

 

.

 

In retrospect, the day Mycroft learned to walk was the worst day of Sherlock’s life. 

 

He takes his first step with a tentative breath, and the next with a happy gasp. Then he toddles all the way up to his brother - and latches onto his leg. 

 

Sherlock remembers the squishy round face that turned up to look at him, and the utter delight that sparks in his eyes when the little terror realizes, right then, that he will always be able to follow Sherlock, whenever, wherever he wants.

 

(It takes Sherlock three weeks to realize he could circumvent this problem by merely containing Mycroft in his little prison of a crib. By then, it only takes Mycroft two days to learn how to escape.)


	6. Chapter 6

“Suspended?”

 

Sherlock wonders if he heard wrong. He turns to look at his little, duplicitous tyrant of a younger sibling, who blinks up at Sherlock from his pudding innocently with a smile.

 

“ _Mycroft_ , suspended?” he asks Mother again, skeptically.  Adults loved Mycroft - it was practically a given. _Why,_ Sherlock had no idea, but the brat seemed to have a special talent for charming adult authority figures.

 

Case in point: Mother barely looks upset at all, in relaying this news, whereas Sherlock had, one time - _one time! -_ gotten in trouble at school for a really _very_ minor explosion in the chemistry lab, and _whoo_ had he gotten an earful.

 

And pudding? After a suspension?

 

Clearly, someone had a favorite.

 

“Something about a revolt,” Mother says carelessly with a sigh and a dismissive wave. “He’ll be back in school next week.”

 

The two of them smile at each other, and to Sherlock, it almost looks as if they’re doing so conspiratorially.

 

“Might have been sooner, but I missed my boys.”

 

Sherlock shoots his mother a disbelieving look at that - patently _untrue_ , as this has _nothing_ to do with Sherlock - and then a cold tendril of terror wriggles up from his belly like acid reflux. He shoots _Mycroft_ a suspicious look.

 

“What happened?” he asks. What he _means_ is, _did you do this on purpose?_ Mycroft knew very well Sherlock would be home for the week, while Mycroft was meant to still be in school. Sherlock doubts very much that their mother is in on it, but she really doesn’t need to be, in order to cater to Mycroft’s whims.  

 

Mycroft shrugs, the way a very bad actor might shrug before delivering the line: “I really have no idea what happened.”

 

“There I was, minding my own business, when I noticed the debate team’s uniforms just really weren’t up to scratch this year. I might have mentioned that it must have been due to funds diverted, and for _some reason_ that just made Waverly blab about the money his parents had donated, despite the fact that that _can’t_ be true because his father lost his job and they’d been struggling, which revealed _all on its own_ an affair he’d been having with Pemberly’s mother and-”

 

“Alright STOP,” Sherlock says, covering his ears and backtracking like hell. “I don’t want to hear anymore.”

 

“Sherlock,” Mycroft says, changing tack, “would you like some pudding?”

 

“Nope, nope, nope.” He’s heading for his room. Mycroft seems to take this as an invitation, jumping up from his seat.

 

“Sherlock! Now we’ll have the whole week to spend together!”

  
  


.

  


John wanders downstairs in a haze. Truth be told, he hadn’t gotten much sleep last night, what with being kidnapped and had bombs strapped to and all.

 

The living room is quiet, save for Sherlock sitting in his armchair, plucking - angrily, really - at the strings of his violin.

 

“Sherlock,” he greets through a yawn. “You’re awake.”

 

“John,” Sherlock returns snippily.

 

Then John locates the source of such ire: sitting in his own chair, Mycroft Holmes.

 

“Are you still mad at me?” Mycroft sounds petulant. Sherlock glowers at him with enough force that Mycroft nearly feels the need to cower. “You shouldn’t be, you really shouldn’t. Without me, you wouldn’t have gotten out of there alive! Either of you!”

 

He turns toward John for backup.

 

“I...am staying out of this,” John says, wisely retreating into the kitchen, turning before he can catch Sherlock’s exaggerated look of utter betrayal. John is sure that, were he more awake, he would have strong feelings one way or another. On principle. He doesn’t much mind putting his life at risk, not really. That’s old hat. But being kept in the dark between two feuding siblings? Not his cup of tea.

 

“Always the favorite,” Sherlock grumbles. “ _Why,_ I have no idea.”

 

“I’m more glamorous,” Mycroft sniffs. “Clearly. I mean, look at this-” he gestures around the flat “-the squalor you live in.”

 

“Hey,” John protests feebly from the kitchen. He’s watching the kettle, in hopes that his eyes on the pot means it will be slower to boil and that the younger Holmes will be out of the flat before then.

 

“We should all be thankful that Mycroft is merely in this position to work off a grievous debt, John. It’s like parole; he has few rights, they - to the benefit of the free world - keep him on a short leash. I shudder to think of a world where Mycroft has freely moved up the ranks of government, to a position where he is able to reign his damned tyranny on the rest of us.

 

Mycroft smiles at him. “You really think so?”

 

“Begone, you brat. John, please show this tiny terror the door.”

 

“Tiny! We are the same height! And I grew another two centimeters last year. I daresay I might overtake you this time next year.”

 

Sherlock sits, taking in the nightmarish vision of a giant Mycroft, looming over London as literally as he already did so figuratively.

 

“I am an _absolute angel_ ,” Mycroft protests, as if he could read Sherlock’s mind.

 

Sherlock gives him a flat look. “You have five security detail on you at any given point of the day, not only for your own safety but that of the public’s. You, my dear brother, are a nuisance meant to be contained.”

  
Mycroft bristles, about to protest his presumed innocence, when an alert pings on Sherlock’s phone, drawing his attention away. He checks it and jumps right up out of his seat.

 

“John, I need to borrow your laptop,” he says, striding across the room to reappropriate his flatmate’s possessions.

 

“Oh, look, you’re learning to ask-” John says too early, looking up to see that Sherlock’s already hacked his password (again) and is tapping away on it. He narrows his eyes.

 

“Why couldn’t you just use your own?”

 

“This was further from Mycroft,” Sherlock mutters under his breath.

 

Mycroft, put out by the lack of attention, crowds his older brother.

 

“What are you looking at?”

 

Sherlock scrunches his long body up in a fruitless effort to obscure Mycroft’s view of the screen.

 

“Porn,” he answers.

 

Indeed, he is on a dominatrix’s website. Irene Adler, known professionally as The Woman, is draped artfully across a chaise lounge in expensive lingerie.

 

Mycroft’s eyes go wide.

 

“You’re taking a case!”

 

“No.”

 

“And a very interesting one, at that.”

 

“ _No._ ”

 

Mycroft squints, concentrating, holding down Sherlocks arms so he can see the emails as Sherlock struggles to close the tabs.

 

“This is a government case!” Mycroft whines. Sherlock rolls his eyes.

 

“It’s really not.”

 

“It is! It has to do with the royal family!”

 

“It’s classified, and you can’t possibly know that.”

 

“Well who else could it be? That Harry would go out of his way to personally ask?”

 

“ _Harry?_ You’re on a first name basis with the Queen’s equerry?”

 

“I had tea with them last week. So - my case.”

 

“You had tea with them last week and he didn’t bring it up - they don’t trust you. As they shouldn’t.”

 

“It wasn’t an issue last week! They couldn’t have asked me!”

 

John sips his tea from the kitchen, watching the two brothers bat at each other, long arms pushing each others’ faces out of the way in an effort to control his poor, old laptop.


	7. Chapter 7

John Watson likes the idea of thinking himself a writer.

 

It’s a bit, well, novel for him. He’d never thought himself much of a writer, what with the army, medical school, rugby - there had always been other interests.

 

Hell, when he was first given the assignment, by his therapist - the thought of putting his thoughts to paper? All he felt was writer’s block. 

 

But now, wriggling his fingers in front of the laptop in preparation to hit the keyboard, he felt like he was warming up to the idea.

 

Perhaps all he needed was the proper inspiration - which in this case came in the form of Sherlock Holmes.

 

So, like any good writer, John observes.

 

6:01 a.m., Sherlock lies on his side, still in his armchair, plucking at his violin strings, forehead scrunched and mouth pinched. He stops every so often to scribble onto sheets of lined paper he’s piled up on the floor in front of him.

 

“Um. D’you want some toast?” 

 

Sherlock ignores him in favor of more furious scribbling. 

 

12:44 p.m., Sherlock finally rolls off the chair.

 

“Sherlock, you sure you don’t want lunch?”

 

No response.

 

Sherlock is a lump on the ground. 

 

John sighs, and puts away the plate he’d finished washing. He’ll ask again in an hour, like he had an hour before. He walks over to the couch, takes a seat, and turns on the television.

 

Some moments later, he feels the other end of the couch squeak, as Sherlock lowers himself onto the cushion from over the side. He perches carefully in his corner, legs drawn up and arms around them, peering blearily at the show on the screen.

 

“Preposterous,” he scoffs, when the Debbie character storms into the living room to confront the Portia character about her flirting with Debbie’s boyfriend. It’s the first word he’s said all day. “He’s cheating, but not with  _ her.” _

 

John tries to hide a smile. Sherlock’s really developed a taste for reality television since this whole Moriarty debacle.

 

4:23 p.m., Sherlock spins and paces in loops by the windows, bowing long, tremulous notes on his violin. Every so often the music takes on a furious pace, before returning to its languished, haunting pace. Sometimes Sherlock will stop to scratch out a bar or two on the sheet music he has laid out all around him, and pen in twice as many new notes. 

 

“Subject...still...writing...sad...music,” John mutters to himself, as he scribbles down some notes. 

 

4:12 a.m., John blinks to wakefulness almost immediately, a byproduct of his years in the service, but it takes a moment for his mind to understand why.

 

Drifting up the stairs from the living room are strains of sweet, sorrowful notes. Sherlock’s still at it, then, he thinks. The music stops abruptly, erupting into a thunderous passage, before quieting down to a languorous melody once again.

 

Well. Sherlock  _ did _ warn him, that first day.

 

.

 

_ Who knew baby  _

_ brother was  _

_ so clever? _

 

Mycroft frowns at the anonymous text, before glancing up at the bodyguard sitting across from him in his government-issue car.

 

_ Are you flirting _

_ with me, or is _

_ that supposed _

_ to be a threat? _

_ M _

 

“Who are you texting?”

 

Mycroft rolls his eyes. “Your mother,” he mutters to himself. Moriarty likely got his number via Sherlock. He’d  _ told him _ . Many times, at that. Baker Street security was so lax Sherlock might as well be living in a place with no locks.

 

“Excuse me?”

 

“My brother.”

 

_ I’m sorry, but _

_ people who can’t _

_ even be upfront _

_ about what it is _

_ they want hold _

_ no appeal for me. _

_ M _

 

There’s no response; Mycroft didn’t expect one.

 

.

 

The car pulls up to a familiar driveway soon enough and Mycroft is ushered into Buckingham Palace with guards on each side. If he rolled his eyes any harder, he’s sure they’d fall out of his head. 

 

What did they think he was going to do, steal an  _ ashtray? _

 

Please. He’s here twice a month. 

 

They insist on their little duckling formation around him anyway, and so together they group-waddle into the waiting room where Mycroft sees that there are already two figures seated in the sofa, waiting for an audience with whoever they were here to meet about the case - Harry, presumably.

 

“Sherlock!” Mycroft can’t help the surprised exclamation, but he does stop himself from squishing his way into the space between his brother and the funny doctor-blogger. Instead, he takes a seat in the armchair across from Sherlock with some air of authority, acting as if he owned the place.

 

“I didn’t know they gave tours during these hours, are you finally brushing up on your knowledge of basic government?” Mycroft asks, donning his best smug expression. His brother scowls at him, and Mycroft decides to count it as a win. Really though, he is torn between being happy to see his brother, and possibly work  _ with _ him for a change, and appalled that Sherlock is being asked to work on a case that should have been  _ his. _

 

“I’ve no use for such superfluous data as names of royal families.” 

 

“I don’t see why you would be here otherwise,” Mycroft adds, mock-innocent.

 

“Because I am phenomenal,” Sherlock says with a dismissive glance. Then he mutters, not quietly enough to be entirely to himself, “Unlike you - someone who is basically a house pet here.”

 

Mycroft has had enough practice with these interactions to not sputter. The family’s equerry walks out, and Mycroft stands to greet him, but not with an aside directed toward Sherlock: “I knew they’d contact me directly in person to work the case.”

 

Sherlock has the gall to roll his eyes as if Mycroft’s said something untenable.

 

“Harry!” Mycroft says, shaking hands, jumping in before Sherlock can. “Is this about Miss Adler?”

 

Harry looks taken aback, and Sherlock scowls too. Two for two and it’s not even noon.

 

“How did you- nevermind, I’m not sure I want to know,” Harry says with a tight smile. He looks stressed, but Mycroft is very polite as to not comment on it. They take their seats, a tea service is left on the coffee table between them, and Mycroft moves to pour. 

 

“I’ll be mother,” he says, and for some reason Sherlock looks like he is praying for his soul.

 

“So what is it? We’re busy,” Sherlock snaps.

 

“Sherlock!” Mycroft’s sure his cheeks are flushed, possibly his ears too. It’s the complexion, dammit.

 

“Ah, well.” Harry goes and pulls out two identical files, which of course John and Sherlock both reach for, though one is for Mycroft. “Irene Adler, professionally known as ‘The Woman.’”

 

“A dominatrix,” John muses, leaning over to read off Sherlock’s file.

 

Sherlock twists his mouth up. 

 

“Wha has she got on you?” Sherlock asks.

 

“Well, I’m afraid the who and the what of it are...confidential. I really couldn’t say,” Harry says politely.

 

“Then I suggest you pay her,” Sherlock says.

 

Mycroft raises his hand and then sets it down, biting his lip instead of his nail.

 

“I can’t believe she keeps it all on a phone,” he scoffs. “No wonder she picked such an old model.”

 

“Can you, well, hack it?” Harry asks hopefully.

 

Mycroft studies the file with a frown.

 

“I’m not sure, depends on what it’s connected to. Worst case scenario the device really just a camera with a keyboard, a glorified hard drive,” he admits.

 

Sherlock stands without warning, and starts to leave.

 

“I’ll be in touch by the end of the day,” he says, John quick on his heels.

 

“I had rather hoped the two of you could work this together,” Harry calls after him, standing. He gives Mycroft a mildly surprised look - yes, yes, people were always shocked at how brash Sherlock could be. Mycroft gives him a ‘well, what can you do?’ smile.

 

“I bet I can solve it before you,” Mycroft calls after Sherlock, and his brother nearly trips.

 

“Mycroft, stay  _ out _ of this.”

 

“It’s my case too.”

 

“I’ve  _ got _ this.”

 

“Not if I get it first!”

 

Mycroft’s not too proud of that, but Sherlock darts out the door and he figures he should get a move on too. He has time for one last jibe.

 

“Do you really want to put your faith in such people who’d steal an ashtray from Buckingham Palace?” Mycroft asks, eyebrow arched.

 

“Wh-” Harry looks down. The coffee table is, indeed, missing a crystal ashtray.

 

.

 

Mycroft would wager real money that Sherlock is going back to the flat to rummage through his wardrobe. He knows his brother will get carried away by the possibilities of his many ridiculous costumes, and end up improvising anyway. Sherlock always did think best on his feet. 


	8. Chapter 8

“So, what’s the plan?”

 

Sherlock, still in his trademark coat, glances over at John.

 

“We’re to see Miss Adler,” he says. “Didn’t you pay attention to the briefing at the palace?”

 

John gawks at him. “What, just ring her doorbell?”

 

“Why not?” Sherlock answers, walking off with an air of carelessness, like he hadn’t just spent an hour trying on dozens of outfits.

 

“Hurry up,” Sherlock adds uncharacteristically. John raises an eyebrow at that; he normally just - ran off with his long legs without a care for his much shorter companion.

 

“You really think you’ll have news by the end of the day?” John asks.

 

“Oh, I think I’ll have the photos by the end of the day.”

 

John laughs.

 

“Oh, you’re serious.”

 

“Yes, and I’d prefer we arrive _soon,”_ Sherlock says. He adds, muttering, _“before_ Mycroft can get into any trouble.”

 

“You don’t think he’s capable?”

 

“I think if I can solve this quickly I can avoid putting Mycroft in the crosshairs. Again.”

 

“Um, yeah, I’m _pretty sure_ that’s not why you’re trying to outdo your brother,” John says, watching a scowl spread across Sherlock’s face to tell him he’s right.

 

“Why don’t you just admit you like being the smarter one?”

 

“This _Woman_ apparently makes her living ransoming government secrets. Mycroft _is_ a government secret. Ergo, I don't want her anywhere near him.”

 

.

 

Mycroft’s accustomed to being frisked.

 

He stands there with his most droll expression as even after going through the metal detectors and having them wave their wands all over him and turn out his pockets he still needs to get patted down.

 

He looks down his nose imperiously at the guard checking he hasn’t got anything hidden around his ankles.

 

“Are you done now?” he asks.

 

They are, unfortunately, military, and quite immune to Mycroft’s attempts at an arrogant attitude. It may also have something to do with the fact that he practically lives on this military base, and has for the last few years. Most of them have seen his awkward gangly phase.

 

His guards walk him down to the lower level, where he squirrels away into a rather large computer room that goes by many names. Mycroft prefers to refer to it as his office. His brother calls it ‘the cellars,’ the guards sometimes refer to it (out of earshot) as the dungeons, and most people on the base know it as the room where they keep all the servers.

 

There are no windows, and only one door. The walls are meters thick of concrete. This is one of the few places Mycroft is allowed in without a guard, because any work he might do is monitored anyway.

 

.

 

Sherlock finally stops in front of a fence, which was decidedly not Irene Adler’s house.

 

“Yes, yes,” he says.

 

John turns in a semi-circle, confusion evident.

 

“Now, punch me in the face,” Sherlock continues.

 

The circling comes to an abrupt stop. “I’m sorry, what?”

 

“Fist, face, come on, don’t tell me you’ve never gotten into a brawl at the pub, I’d wager-” he’s cut off with an _oof!_ as John’s fist indeed connects with his face.

 

“Oh shit, sorry,” John says mildly. “I wasn’t sure if this was really happening, I figured I was dreaming or something so why not just go for it, and judging by the pain in my knuckles evidently not. You’ve got quite a set of teeth, mate.”

 

Sherlock holds his jaw and winces. Then he turns to see John still has his hands clenched in fists.

 

“Okay, yeah, I think I’m ready,” John says, winding up.

 

“Wait- John- I think we’re done now!”

 

.

 

Mycroft sits in a dark room, obscured by servers.

 

“Anthea, cross reference The Woman’s favorite...date spots, with the royal schedules, and flag any vague appointments that block out hours at a time - and sort those between regular and irregular appointments.”

 

“Yes, sir,” a high female voice answers.

 

“Can’t be him, but might be _him,_ ” Mycroft mutters, scanning the monitors before him and watching a map of London fill out with dots. “Why now, and why isn’t she asking for anything? It’s got to be a trap.”

 

“There is something else on that phone that is of value, Anthea, and she is relying on our nation’s favorite detective going after it - presumably to prevent others from doing so as well,” Mycroft says.

 

His own phone, lying on the desk beside him, lights up with a pale blue dot.

 

“Quite right, Mister Holmes,” the same voice replies.

 

“And so the Queen is bankrolling it! That’s the ransom, is it?”

 

“Hm.” It seems Anthea doesn’t quite agree.

 

Mycroft looks down at the phone, and swipes to unlock it. It’s not a phone call, it’s his virtual assistant. Handcrafted, every line.

 

“Do you have the schedules?” he asks.

 

A notification pops up on his phone, and Mycroft swipes it in the direction of the monitors. An extensive spreadsheet of potential times and dates, location, and names fill the screen.

 

“Aha, quite a few of these people would have reason to intercept,” Mycroft says. He points to one line in particular.

 

“This one’s familiar.”

 

“I believe they are CIA, Mister Holmes.”

 

“Oh, Americans. Really?”

 

“Shall I cross reference The Woman’s favorite ‘date spots’ with foreign agent schedules?”

 

“Anthea, you deserve a raise."

 

“Very funny, Mister Holmes.”

 

Another notification pops up on his phone - SHERLOCK.

 

“He’s there already, is he?”

 

“In her home, in fact.”

 

“Well, why don’t we send the Americans after them?”

 

“Yes, sir.”

 

.

 

By the time John gets back into the sitting room, Sherlock has somehow already managed to get all the dominatrix's clothes off. John nearly drops the bowl of water from his hands.

 

“Oh come onnnn,” he groans under his breath.

 

They kind of snipe at each other for a few moments but, honestly, John doesn't catch much of it.

 

“You like policemen?” he finds himself asking. They're talking about the case. He thinks.

 

It's all very distracting, the two of them. Jesus. The plan, remember the plan.

 

John ducks out of the room soon enough, and they're both far too gone with stroking each other's intellectual egos to notice.

 

“Alright John, you can turn it off now,” Sherlock calls out from inside the sitting room.

 

Easy for him to say, with his legs for days. John is currently struggling with the smoke alarm and will undoubtedly need the assistance of a chair to stand on.

 

-and suddenly there are guys with guns barging in the house.

 

John hears Sherlock's _vatican cameos_ and everyone's hitting the floor.

 

Instinct has him checking the fallen agent (whose?).

 

“He's dead,” John says.

 

“Thank you, you were very observant,” the woman tells Sherlock.

 

“Observant?” John asks. There's a dead man on the floor.

 

“I’m flattered,” Irene Adler adds, to which Sherlock answers, “Don’t be.”

 

“Flattered?” John’s lost.

 

“There’ll be more of them. They’ll be keeping an eye on the building,” Sherlock says, and _that_ John does understand.

 

“We should call the police,” John says anyway. He’s a civilian now, he shouldn’t be getting into shoot-outs willy-nilly. John’s about to suggest a phone, perhaps, when Sherlock points the pistol straight up and fires five times.

 

“On their way,” he says, like the drama queen he is.

 

“For God’s sake!!”

 

“Oh shut up, it’s quick,” Sherlock quips. “Go check the rest of the house.”

 

He does, seeing Sherlock’s got what they came for: the phone. John’ll have to ask how he’d done it later.

 

John doesn’t get far - there’s a woman collapsed on the floor, one of Miss Adler’s.

 

“Sherlock!” he calls out. Perhaps there are still men in the house.

 

“It’s alright, she’s just out cold,” John adds.

 

“Well, God knows she’s used to that. There’s a back door, better check it, Dr. Watson,” the woman says. He goes.

 

And by the time he’s back, Sherlock’s down.

 

“Jesus,” he says. The Woman is standing above him, riding crop in hand. But he didn’t hear- he can’t be-

 

“He’ll sleep for a few hours,” the woman says, and it placates him slightly. “Make sure he doesn’t choke on his own vomit. It makes for a very unattractive corpse.”

 

There’s a syringe lying next to Sherlock.

 

“What’s this? What have you given him? Sherlock!”

 

The police are coming. He can hear the sirens. They won’t catch her, though, John knows that much.

 

.

 

Thankfully, they get Lestrade.

 

John suspects that with most anyone else they’d have a lot more to explain, but once they get Sherlock into the back seat and he starts mumbling on about the injustices of how the solar system is arranged, Lestrade just takes out his phone to record it all.

 

“Don’t tell him,” Lestrade tells John with a grin that says Sherlock likely already knows.

 

“Uh-huh,” John says.

 

Sherlock continues to mumble nonsense as they walk him into the flat and twirl him into bed. He comes back out shouting about The Woman not long later, and has an entire conversation with John that John knows he’ll forget happened. He walks Sherlock back into his room.

 

.

 

Irene Adler’s home is a crime scene.

 

The government men are long gone and the police have all they need. It’s cordoned off and presumably empty, so when Mycroft comes by to take a look there aren’t many people on scene to convince into letting him do so.

 

Of course, the guards follow, but Mycroft doesn’t quite mind. He’s used to it.

 

 _“Don’t_ step on anything important,” he tells the one behind him. “I can tell everything that happened here just by looking, if only it were preserved _without_ the police interference.”

 

He says the last bit loud enough that he hopes the officer standing outside can hear. It’s so much easier to avoid people who are trying to avoid you too.

 

When they get to The Woman’s personal rooms, Mycroft can feel his guards taking a curious look around too. He rolls his eyes.

 

There are enough mirrors around, giving the impression of being able to see the entire room from any spot, that it apparently obscures a blindspot. Mycroft doesn’t realize this until he steps behind the changing screen and finds a door - not the closet, another one, and opens it-

 

-and not a single guard takes notice as he’s pulled inside with the door gently closing behind him.

 

A single dim light bulb blinks into life, and Mycroft looks down at Jim Moriarty, who still has a hand on his arm.

  
“Hello _Mycroft,”_ he says, with a smile and exasperated look as if he’d made been to wait.


	9. Chapter 9

Sherlock is loath to admit the next morning that he’d actually had quite a lovely, restful night of sleep. 

 

He sends word to the Equerry that The Woman still had the photos, but she had no plans to sell them. So long as the Nation didn’t move against her, they wouldn’t see the light of day.

 

Of course, that wasn’t the full story.

 

An orgasmic moan floats through the flat.

 

John lowers his paper and looks around, at Sherlock, and then Mrs. Hudson. 

 

“Wasn’t me,” she says. Cheeky. 

 

“What was that?” John asks, looking straight at Sherlock.

 

“Text message.”

 

“Your texts don’t always sound like that.”

 

As if to prove John’s point, Sherlock’s phone buzzes right then. He looks down to two new messages: One from The Woman, and the other from his darling menace of a baby brother.

 

_ Heard you wound  _

_ up with nothing. _

_ M _

 

It’s from a blocked number, of course, because Mycroft is paranoid. 

 

_ Stay out of this, _

_ Mycroft Alvin Holmes. _

_ SH _

 

“And who’s that from?” John asks.

 

_ “Mycroft,” _ Sherlock says with disdain. “I thought I told that brat to stay out of this.”

 

_ The case is closed. _

_ SH _

 

“Why are you so insistent? Mycroft is an adult, he can make his own decision,” John says, and it’s one of the stupidest things Sherlock has ever heard John say.

 

“She has more than just  _ embarrassing pictures _ , John. Do you really think the Americans would send in a team like that, shooting to kill, over a few photographs?” he explains. 

 

“God knows they’re used to them,” Sherlock adds, muttering. “No, she has something that’s become more liability than leverage, and I bet she doesn’t even know what it is.”

 

.

 

Mycroft texts away in the back of the car, sticking out his bottom lip as he debates whether to respond to Sherlock’s last message or not. 

 

Figures, there was finally an interesting case, and Sherlock didn’t want him anywhere near it. Mycroft couldn’t win. If there  _ weren’t _ any interesting cases, Sherlock’d mope for days and not speak to him (or, well, anyone really). But now there  _ was _ one, and he wanted to keep it all for himself!

 

But more importantly, Mycroft is worried this is interesting for the wrong reasons.

 

He knows that someone has  _ set this up. _ She’d fully expected the agents Mycroft nudged their way, which meant she wasn’t counting on the protection of the British royal family after all. Irene Adler wants Sherlock Holmes - but what for? 

 

He worries at his lip and remembers the, well, interesting conversation he’d had at her home.

 

::

 

Mycroft squints down at the criminal mastermind-for-hire.

 

“Have you been hiding in Miss Adler closet?” 

 

Moriarty grins, eyes crinkling as he wants to laugh. “Toy room.”

 

“T- ugh.” Mycroft looks around, and rather wishes he didn’t. He wrinkles his nose at Moriarty’s little forensics officer getup too.

 

Moriarty sighs. “You’re a hard one to get to, what with all the guard dogs. Do they really follow you everywhere?”

 

Mycroft straightens his jacket out instead of answering. 

 

“Thought you might need a friend,” Moriarty says. Mycroft eyes him warily.

 

“Oh, don’t look at that,” he says. “Bet you’d love to get away from the suits. Bet I could  _ help.” _

 

So he was trying to expand his client base, was he?

 

“You’re much more capable than they give you credit for...running errands like this? Please. I’d have so much more fun with you.”

 

Ah, recruiting. Mycroft smiles sweetly. 

 

“I know better than to deal with the devil.”

 

“Oooh.” That makes Moriarty laugh, apparently. “You flatter me. But, oh. Oh, oh you still think you’re on their side, don’t you? I know why they keep you locked up, and it’s not because they  _ like _ you.”

 

Mycroft knows Moriarty must be half bluffing. He hadn’t been able to find records of Mycroft Holmes the first time, because they don’t exist.

 

He bristles anyway, and turns to leave.

 

His hand’s already on the knob when Moriarty stops it with his own.

 

“You know where to reach me,” he says, with a smile like a shark, before melting back into dark waters as Mycroft leaves.

 

::

 

Mycroft calls Harry, who assures him the case  _ is _ closed. None of this sits quite right with him.

 

But no matter what he thinks, or wants, this is no longer an open case. It is out of Mycroft’s jurisdiction. He has Anthea keep tabs on The Woman, but there is no unusual activity, nothing so far as to raise alarm anyhow.

 

Not until Christmas.

  
  


:::

 

Christmas has always come with its own set of pros and cons, a sort of cosmic balance that sorted itself out.

 

For every pair of wooly socks was an interesting component for his latest experiment, and behind every gift good or bad was a coddling relative waiting for their share of hugs and kisses.

 

But this year, oh he should have realized, this year he has Mycroft. 

 

A year’s worth of enduring the drooling toddler’s clinging has finally paid off, because Mycroft sits in his lap and refuses to move, staring out at all the aunts and uncles with wide eyes.

 

“Aww, he’s just shy,” one of them says, patting Mycroft’s wavy hair. Another pinches those rosy cherubic cheeks as Mycroft sits further back, trying to burrow into Sherlock’s ugly jumper.

 

“Welcome to Christmas,” Sherlock tells him.

 

“Christmas,” Mycroft repeats in a babyish whisper, crumbling a biscuit in one of his pudgy fists. Sherlock supposes the crumbs are part of the cosmic balance too. Mycroft’s too young to realize he’s being used by Sherlock as a human shield.

 

He gorges himself on sweets and then abruptly falls asleep on top of Sherlock an hour later, but it’s just as well. Sherlock gets to duck out of the noisy living room with the excuse of putting Mycroft somewhere he won’t get stepped on, and then barricading himself in his lab (bedroom) having already grabbed all of the best of his presents. He’s grabbed some of Mycroft’s too, just in case he wakes up and Sherlock needs something to distract him with.

 

Cosmic balance strikes again, as Mycroft wakes up an hour past his bedtime full of energy, pulling on Sherlock’s hair and babbling about the tree and the party they’d had that day. 

 

“Up! Up!” Mycroft demands, his small body expressing his impatience with an unintentional kick straight to Sherlock’s diaphragm. Sherlock wheezes as he tries to stand, one hand braced on his knee and the other bracing Mycroft to make sure he doesn’t fall off Sherlock’s shoulders.

 

“Sherlock, higher!” he says. He wasn’t half as talkative when the relatives were around, and Sherlock is just a tad fascinated by this personality development of his brother’s. Was it permanent, or a phase? He cranes his head up to see Mycroft reaching for the angel at the top of the tree.

 

“What on earth do you want that for?”

 

“It’s special. Mummy said,” Mycroft answers. She  _ had _ said, when she let Mycroft put it at the top of the tree, to finish it off. Perhaps he thought that now the party was over it was time to clean up.

 

“Do we have to do this now?” Sherlock asks. He didn’t particularly mind, now that the adults were out, but he didn’t see the point.

 

“But it’s mine,” Mycroft says.

 

“It’s not.”

 

“Is too, like the toys you put next to my head,” Mycroft insists. “When I woke up.”

 

Sherlock catches his reflection in one of the ornaments and realizes he’s made a mistake. Mycroft would grow up thinking the world revolved around him, and it would all be his fault. The child psychologists would trace it back to this very moment, all because of cosmic balance.

 

“I got it!”

 

“Yay,” Sherlock intones. 

 

:::

 

The breathy moan echoes through the flat, which really puts a damper on the already-awkward Christmas festivities. 

 

Sherlock checks it, just because it gives him something to do. He doesn’t respond, because he never does, but he answers to this one this time.

 

_ Mantlepiece. _

 

Sherlock stands to check it - and finds a black-wrapped packaged tied off with silk rope. 

 

It’s her phone. 

 

Sherlock’s phone buzzes again, and he starts to wonder whether Mycroft actually does have his phone bugged. He ignores it, and it turns into a call.

 

He ignores that, too, and then John gets a call.

 

“Hello?” John steps out of the flat to take it, but Sherlock can still hear him asking, “Mycroft?”

 

He has a good idea what the call is about. 

 

.

 

Mycroft closes the dressing room curtain behind him, and turns to meet Moriarty.

 

“Alright,” Mycroft says. “What exactly is your idea?”

 

Moriarty smiles like a cat that’s gotten into the cream; Mycroft holds his blank expression.

 

“I agreed to this merely to hear you out. You’ve yet to convince me you’re capable of pulling off something neither Sherlock or I could,” Mycroft adds, raising an eyebrow. 

 

If Moriarty’s bothered by the insinuation that he’s not able, he doesn’t let it show. He straightens the bowtie of Mycroft’s tuxedo instead, and then pulls out a small jewelry box.

 

“I got you a present,” he says.

 

“No, thank you,” Mycroft says. Cufflinks, he’s sure. And who knows what might be in them!

 

Moriarty pops open the box anyway, showing him a pair of, yes, cufflinks. Mycroft’s jaw nearly drops; he clenches it. A pair of birds, carved from gemstone translucent enough to suggest there isn’t a hidden tracker.

 

Moriarty tsks and gives Mycroft a patronizing expression, before holding out his hand for Mycroft’s arm and sleeve.

 

Mycroft sticks out his arm. Better get it over with; if he took too long, the guards would suspect. 

 

The meeting had been weeks in the making, and Mycroft had had to come up with some silly reason to visit a tailor other than his usual, and agree to an opening night gala at the opera rather than spend Christmas with his brother.  

 

“The Woman had something more danger than protection,” Moriarty says softly, fixing up Mycroft’s cuffs. 

 

“Yes, and now she’s dead,” Mycroft says.

 

Moriarty gives him a look. Not dead then?

 

“Phone’s not. If it gets out - whatever this  _ horrible, terrible _ secret she has on it is - and  _ you _ just happen to have a way to make it all go away…”

 

Mycroft scoffs.

 

“Yes, that won’t put me under any suspicion at all,” he grumbles. 

 

“Well,” Moriarty says with pat and an unnecessary straightening of the suit jacket lapels, “You’re much more valuable than she is, and your coming up with a fix isn’t out of character, is it? This might be just the bargaining chip you need.”

 

Mycroft tugs himself out of Moriarty’s grasp.

 

“So now you want  _ me _ to locate the phone.” Sneaky little bastard. 

 

“Wasn’t that the original gig anyway?” Moriarty turns him around and gives him a little push toward the curtains.

  
“Just think it over. Now go, you don’t want to be  _ late  _ to your little gathering. Your handlers might notice.”


	10. Chapter 10

Mycroft climbs into the seat beside Sherlock with great difficulty, having piled Sherlock’s book bag and coat on top of each other as a makeshift step-stool to do so.

 

“Sherlock.”

 

“Hm?”

 

“Sherlock, what’re you doinggg.”

 

“I’m solving a murder.”

 

Sherlock is reading the morning newspaper; one local story in particular, which reports the death of one Carl Powers, drowned during a swimming match.

 

“What’s a murder?”

 

“When one human being kills another in cold blood,” Sherlock says ominously.

 

“Cold blood like your geckers?”

 

“Geckos. No. Figurative language, remember Mycroft? We talked about this. You need to brush up on your rhetoric and drama.”

 

“Rederic,” Mycroft repeats to himself, baffled, wondering if he was related to the Frederick from Prussia Sherlock had told him about.

 

“Yes.”

 

“Who killed him?” Mycroft asks.

 

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out,” Sherlock explains sagely, setting the paper down. He points to the words Mycroft doesn’t quite understand and lays out the facts.

 

“Carl Powers was a champion swimmer, it says right here. Yet he died during a swim meet,” Sherlock says, as Mycroft nods along. “See the byline is shared with a local town reporter, so the biography is quite extensive. Carl Powers was a popular boy, and very neat with his things. His mother even talks about his cherished pair of trainers, which he’d kept very clean, except the police can’t find them anywhere. Isn’t this suspicious?”

 

Mycroft nods diligently. The trainers killed him, dastardly things. Mycroft was never wearing shoes again.

 

“Now, a murder needs motive,” Sherlock continues. Mycroft looks at him, and he explains. “Someone needs a reason to want to kill him.”

 

“His...feet were stinky?” Mycroft guesses. Who knew the hearts of shoes? 

 

Sherlock opens his mouth to refute the point, then closes it, considering. 

 

“He had eczema…” he mutters to himself, scanning the report again. 

 

Mycroft scrunches up his mouth. 

 

“Sherlock, I’m  _ bored.  _ Play with me.” He tugs on his brother’s sleeve.

 

“Not now, I have to make a call first,” Sherlock says, standing. 

 

“Can I make a call too?”

 

“No, I’m calling the police, to let them know this is a murder. This isn’t some - some accident. Someone wanted Carl Powers to die. Someone  _ clever _ enough to make it  _ look _ like an accident.”

 

“Sherlock,” Mycroft whines, flopping over on the floor. 

 

“Not now, Mycroft.”


	11. Chapter 11

“Anthea, what joint projects do we have with the Americans?”

 

Mycroft sifts through project files, sour-faced at the fact that there is no doubt some junior analyst watching his every move. He’s not sure what they say about him, but even his guards get jumpy when Mycroft comes within a few steps of even a public computer.

 

It’s why he made Anthea (one reason why), line by line written completely on his phone. 

 

So, he can understand the attachment The Woman feels to her phone, in a way. 

 

The trusty assistant pulls up a list of classified projects. 

 

“We’ll need to set up a meeting with them…” he muses.

 

Mycroft’s next task is tricky, because it will need to be in order to keep everyone happy. 

 

If Irene Adler is alive, his brother must now know it too (though Sherlock likely does not know that  _ Mycroft _ knows). He would need to keep her that way. For whatever reason, Sherlock’s developed some sort of kinship with The Woman. He seemed quite upset at the news of her death, and possibly the loss of an interesting nemesis. John said they were in love, but what does John know?

 

Mycroft also needs to figure out what’s on the phone that is so dangerous, which wouldn't be impossible to do with Anthea’s help. But he needed to do so without letting Sherlock figure out what exactly it is. That would be trickiest. He’d have to call in favors.

 

He drags his feet as the guards walk him to the car, trying to think up a way to determine how much  _ Sherlock _ knew about the whole situation. He never could manage to read his brother’s mind, not like these other idiots.

 

It was easy to tell the guard on his left was nervous about becoming a father. The one on his right has been with him much longer, and still dislikes being paraded through the military base. 

 

He taps away on his phone in the back of the car, texting with Anthea about the Americans’ operations. He needs to set up a meeting with the agent he’d nudged Sherlock’s way, to see if they could work something out.

 

Witness protection for Irene Adler - Mycroft sits up a little straighter with the idea. If he could convince them somehow to keep her under watch, rather than take her out, it’d keep her alive, it’d keep the big problem under wraps, and it’d keep her out of Sherlock’s path. 

 

The speed of the car changes a few moments later, and Mycroft suspects the driver just got a call.

 

He’s certain of it when a few moments later, they turn left instead of right.

 

Mycroft bites his lip as he waits. The door opens soon enough, and though it’s a government building filled with many officials high up enough for him to occasionally answer to, he knows who he’s supposed to be meeting. 

 

.

 

The guards march him down to Lady Elizabeth Smallwood’s warmly furnished office. When one of them opens the door, he can see there is already someone seated in one of the two chairs facing her desk.

 

Just as he arranged.

 

“Ah, I see you’re all here,” Mycroft says, striding into the room.

 

“Mycroft Holmes!” Smallwood stands, hands flat on her desk. She is not happy.

 

He tries to look sheepish, and probably fails.

 

“Who is this, your assistant?” The seated CIA agent barely gives him a glance. “I'll take a coffee, black.”

 

“Good afternoon, Lady Smallwood,” he says, before turning to the man. “Mr. Neilson.”

 

Neilson is put off. It’s obvious he wasn’t expecting someone so young. 

 

Lady Smallwood narrows her eyes at Mycroft.

 

“I called you in here because you were poking around in CIA files, Mycroft Holmes. Imagine my displeasure to see Mr. Neilson walk through the doors before you’d arrived,” she says.

 

“I’ve news about Irene Adler,” Mycroft answers.

 

“She’s dead,” the CIA man says. But he hesitates. 

 

Mycroft knows he’d better say something quick while he still has their attention; the stakes were too high for games this time.

 

“She knows about Bond Air,” Mycroft says. That silences the room. Smallwood sends the guards out, and then it’s just them three.

 

“How do  _ you _ know about it?” Neilson practically growls, and Smallwood is stunned enough she doesn’t try to calm him. She sinks down into her chair, a tight line forming on her forehead.

 

“Months, over a  _ year _ of planning,” she says.

 

“I found out because I have access,” Mycroft explains, ignoring the look Neilson shoots Smallwood. “But she knows because she took a photo of an email. She hasn’t sold it yet though - and I think for the right price, she won’t sell it at all.”

 

“How are you so sure?” Neilson says.

 

“Her M.O. this entire time has been protection. Irene Adler has a tremendous sense of self-preservation; it trumps the need for identity, for relationships, for legacy. She just wants to survive, and she’s been auditioning armies the past year,” Mycroft says. 

 

“She prodded Great Britain about it, and they sent their nation’s best: Sherlock Holmes. He’s still in the running,” Mycroft says. He turns to Neilson. “And the CIA lost the moment your team stepped into her house, and lost the phone.”

 

“So why come to us now?”

 

“Offer her safe passage, a new identity, citizenship. And I bet she’ll let you keep your secrets,” Mycroft says.

 

“This isn’t a game,” Smallwood interjects. “Mycroft Holmes, a plane full of people will go up in flames by the hands of a terrorist cell if Coventry is off. Do you understand the repercussions? The shockwaves such an event would send?”

 

“Yes, and I understand there are people in the world, like her, who don’t care.”

 

Neither of them look at Mycroft, and they look far from happy. But they do look ready to listen.

 

“So how do we make contact?” Neilson asks first.

 

.

 

_ Outside. _

 

John pockets his phone without responding to the blocked-number text and pokes his head out the front door. There’s a black SUV waiting, and a pretty assistant not unlike the one who’d been at his first abduction and meeting with Mycroft Holmes.

 

John sighs heavily but gets into the car without protest.

 

“Can’t Mycroft just do things like a normal person?” he asks her as she ignores him and texts away. “Meet up at a cafe, like the one just across the street?”

 

“You can ask him yourself,” she says. The car comes to a stop, and he gets out. He heads towards the clearing with the most dramatic lighting, where no doubt Mycroft is waiting. 

 

“So, he’s fine. Well, I say fine, but he’s writing sad music. Doesn’t eat, barely talks - only to correct the television,” John says. 

 

He still remembers the Christmas Eve phone call, and thinking he should’ve known better than to expect holiday formalities from a Holmes. Of course Mycroft wasn’t calling with well wishes; he wanted John to watch Sherlock, and make sure it wasn’t a “danger night.”

 

“I’d say he was heartbroken,” John continues. “But er, well, he’s Sherlock. Does all that anyway.”

 

The black-clad person who steps out from behind the column is not Mycroft.

 

It is Irene Adler, and she is not a ghost.

 

“Tell him you’re alive,” John says before thinking. It just spills out, the words a yell by the end of it.

 

“Look,” she says, bristling. “I made a mistake. I sent something to Sherlock for safe-keeping, and now I need it back, so I need your help.”

 

Oh, they’re on a first-name basis now, are they? Of course they are.

 

“No,” John says.

 

“It is  _ for his own safety,” _ Irene insists.

 

“So’s this: Tell him you’re alive,” John pushes right back. He stands his ground, literally too, because he thinks if he gets too close he might want to hit someone.

 

“I can’t,” she says. Of all the weak excuses-

 

“You can and you will, or  _ I  _ will tell him, and I still won’t help you,” John says.

 

“What do I say?”

 

He stares. “That you’re  _ alive _ for starters. He doesn’t deserve that. To think he knew you and then you were dead. What do you normally say? You two have texted a LOT.”

 

“Just the usual.”

 

“There’s no usual, with Sherlock Holmes.”

 

She rolls her eyes, pulling out her phone.

 

“Good morning,” she says - she’s reading. “I like your funny hat. I’m sad tonight. Let’s have dinner.”

 

John’s taken aback. 

 

“You’ve flirted with Sherlock Holmes.”

 

“At him, he never replies. “

 

“Well.” He blinks, thinking. “Do it again.”

 

She stares. “Are you jealous?”

 

“We’re not a couple.”

 

“That’s not what I said.”

 

His expression doesn’t change. 

 

She types. “There.”

 

John’s about to answer - but then they hear the echo of a moan.  _ That _ moan. He follows on reflex, but Irene gives him a  _ look _ \- he stays. 

 

.

 

Sherlock heads for Baker Street, looking over his shoulder constantly to see that he is not followed. 

 

He can still remember identifying her body at the morgue. It was close, but the bashed-in head gave it away.

 

He didn’t see her face, just then, but he’s sure it couldn’t be anyone else. 

 

By the time Sherlock gets to his flat, he’s sure The Woman had more to say to John than he’d stayed for, because John isn’t anywhere close on his tail.

 

Sherlock heads to the privacy of his own room before he takes out the phone he’s been keeping on his person since Christmas.

 

He turns it on, and the lock screen lights up.

 

I AM _ _ _ _ LOCKED

 

Slowly, he taps at the keys to satisfy a hunch.

 

I AM  S H E R LOCKED

 

The moment of truth - and then it opens.

 

“Huh.” Sherlock blinks. He’d had the phone x-rayed, and the explosives wired into the casing were the main deterrent to his guessing at various keys, but he knew he had to get at least one chance for error. Now he may never know.

 

“I suppose it’s paid off, being a narcissist,” he mutters to himself. Whether it was a joke or some other meaning he’d yet to uncover, Irene Adler had had her heart set on him for this case since at least Christmas. Now he just needed to figure out why.


	12. Chapter 12

Mycroft Holmes walks into a cafe.

 

There’s a green-eyed blonde waiting for him in the corner, and the two of them blend right in with the university crowd.

 

She raises an eyebrow as Mycroft takes a seat across from her, glancing out the window at the dusting of snow that seems to disappear before it can touch anything.

 

“I hear California’s nice this time of year,” he says with an American accent. “Plenty of the rich and powerful with their dirty little secrets.”

 

He looks her up and down. “You’d fit right in.”

 

She narrows her eyes at him.

 

“What makes you think they’d take me?” Irene Adler asks. “Drop the accent.”

 

She’s unsettled for a moment, but covers it quickly.

 

“And who are you that you’re qualified to make this deal?” 

 

Mycroft takes his time, taking a long sip from his coffee and ruining the foam. 

 

“I have a good idea what you have on that phone of yours, and there’s enough to strongarm either government into giving you protection, isn’t there?”

 

“Oh, there’s more than that. Loads more - secrets, pictures, scandals that could topple the world. You’ve no idea the havoc I could cause.” 

 

“But you’re here for sentimental reasons, aren’t you?” Mycroft looks up at her guilessly. “I work for the British government, and I think you can appreciate why I would rather have the Americans foot the bill on this front.”

 

“Here you’ve got Sherlock Holmes,” Mycroft continues. “And, well, I can’t have that.”

 

Her eyes light up something smug as it seems like he’s exposed a nerve. He lets her have it.

 

“I see you’ve been laying low the past few months, which means you’ve barely any client activity. But that doesn’t worry you does it?” he asks.

 

“Well, you won’t have  _ him  _ for much longer, and that  _ should _ worry you. I know that even if you scrolled from top to bottom of that big, long address book of yours in your precious phone, your friends are few and far between,” he says.

 

Mycroft passes over a sheet of paper, which she unfolds to read.

 

“More details about the sort of protection you can expect. I trust you understand this isn’t standard witness protection; you retain a great deal more freedom and luxury than you would otherwise, running around London hoping to attract Sherlock’s attention and faking your death every six months,” he says as she reads it over. 

 

If she’s surprised, or displeased, she doesn’t show it either way.

 

“And who are you, to be so obsessed with him as well?” she asks instead. 

 

He considers it, and takes the risk. He gives her his hand to shake.

 

“Mycroft Holmes,” he says. “Technically I work for the Home Office.”

 

Her eyes widen just a fraction, and he detects a hint of betrayal. Odd, that. He suspects she thought she knew all about Sherlock.

 

“So, what, I hand this over to you, and I just get off scot free?” she asks, leaning forward across the table.

 

“Yes,” Mycroft says mildly.

 

“Too bad,” Irene says. She gets up from the table, and gives him a little smile as she leaves. 

 

.

 

The door to Sherlock's bedroom is ajar, and he's nowhere to be found in the flat.

 

“Sherlock?” John calls out with badly restrained anger. “Did you  _ not _ see the ‘no experiments’ label on the vegetable crisper?”

 

His voice goes a bit high for this next part, as he accidentally remembers just what he  _ smelled _ in there and,  _ puh,  _ Dr. John Watson is not squeamish, but some things you just didn’t want to see and smell before breakfast.

 

He moves to knock on the door and then backtracks, thinking better of it, then storms toward the door again because when he closes his eyes he can still smell it.

 

The door opens. It’s not Sherlock.

 

Irene Adler is wrapped in Sherlock’s dressing gown (the shiny blue one), her hair wet from a recent bath.

 

“What the-”

 

.

 

Irene curls up in John’s armchair as John makes a ‘of course she is’ gesture behind her that goes completely ignored.

 

Sherlock lounges imperiously in his own armchair, the two snooty cats taking tea as if this were Buckingham Palace.

 

“So who’s after you?” Sherlock asks.

 

“People who want to kill me,” she says.

 

“Yes, a very illuminating answer, exactly what I require of my clients,” he mutters.

 

She quirks the corner of her mouth. 

 

“It would help if you were a tiny bit more specific,” John tries.

 

“So I faked my death,” Irene says.

 

“Didn’t work, did it?” Sherlock parries.

 

“Where’s my camera phone?” she asks. 

 

“It’s not here, we’re not stupid,” John says; she ignores him.

 

“What exactly do you keep on it?” Sherlock asks.

 

“Pictures, information, anything I might find useful.” Irene shrugs, it’s not as casual as she’d like.

 

“For blackmail,” John guesses.

 

“For protection.” she corrects him, sitting forward. “I make my way in the world; I misbehave. I like to know people will be on my side exactly when I need them to be.”

 

“Not quite protection when what’s on the phone is why you’ve got killers after you,” Sherlock says.

 

Irene gives him a wry smile.

 

“Aren’t you interested in what it is?” she asks.

 

Sherlock hesitates, just a moment, but she catches it.

 

_ “Do _ you even know what it is?” he asks. 

 

She pinches her mouth.

 

“It concerns a project from the Home Office, and the Americans are involved,” she says, as Sherlock rolls his eyes remembering the botched ambush. “That much I know.”

 

“It’s called...M,” she says.  _ That _ catches Sherlock’s attention. “A cybersecurity project, with far reaching consequences. Could open any door… goodbye security, goodbye privacy. But there’s some _ one _ involved in the project they’re trying to cover up.”

 

“And someone’s looking for him,” Irene says.

 

“Him?” Sherlock asks.

 

“I only heard one name: Mycroft. Maybe it’s code, I think it’s a name.”

 

Sherlock’s silent for a moment, but then he pulls the phone from his jacket pocket, as John turns to stare in shock, first at the phone, then at him.

 

“Show me,” Sherlock says. 

 

Irene holds her hand out for the phone, and it’s a long moment before he hands it to her. It takes everything John has to not interject - he’s curious about what they’ll find as well.

 

She watches Sherlock carefully, as she takes the phone close to her chest to input that secret code no one’s figured out.

 

Then she scrolls through her photos until she comes to a snapshot of an email, taken upside-down.

 

“There was a man - a MOD official. I knew what he liked,” she says. 

 

She turns the phone around, and both Sherlock and John lean in to read it.

 

“He said they were  _ this close _ to taking him out,” Irene says. “They just needed the last piece of the operation to fall into place.”

 

_ 007 Confirmed allocation  _

_ 4C12C45F13E13G60A60B61F34G34J60D12H33K34K  _

 

Sherlock takes it all in, speaking quickly as he processes the information.

 

“There’s a margin for error but I’m pretty sure there’s a 747 leaving Heathrow tomorrow at 6:30 in the evening for Baltimore. It’s key to this, though I’m not sure how quite yet - but give me a moment; I’ve only been on the case for eight seconds,” he says. 

 

He glances back to see John staring at him, and then Irene looking just as bewildered.

 

“Oh, come on. It’s not code, These are seat allocations on a passenger jet,” he says. He points to the numbers, explaining, if possible, even more quickly than before.

 

“Look, there’s no letter ‘I’ because it can be mistaken for a ‘1’; no letters past ‘K’ – the width of the plane is the limit. The numbers always appear randomly and not in sequence but the letters have little runs of sequence all over the place – families and couples,” he says. 

 

In his explanation, he misses Irene moving her hand behind her back - to send a text.

 

He doesn’t see it, but the next thing he says when he looks up again surprises her anyway.

 

“You’re still lying,” Sherlock says, having trailed off explaining his deductions. 

 

Irene smiles, it’s almost beatific.

 

“Well, I must be going now,” she says, tying up her belt and picking up her shoes.

 

“Oh, I don’t think so,” Sherlock says calmly.

 

“I’ve got my phone, I’ve got my code, what else would I need? Oh, you didn’t think I was here for  _ you _ did you, Sherlock Holmes?” Irene laughs, but finds she’s lost her voice when Sherlock pulls out another phone, clearly not hers, and pulls up the same photo of the email.

 

“How did you-”

 

“Oh, not just this, but the entirety of the contents on your phone.”

 

She stares.

 

“I cloned it,” Sherlock continues. Then his eyes widen with understanding. “Oh, you thought I still needed  _ you _ . To unlock it? No, no, I’d done it days ago, when you had your little rendezvous with John.”

 

By the looks of it, it’s the first time John’s hearing this as well.

 

“But…”

 

“You got carried away. The game was too elaborate. You were enjoying yourself too much,” Sherlock says with mock sympathy. 

 

Irene stares at the photo in his hand, still disbelieving. It has to be a bluff. He took the photo right then somehow - he can’t have the rest of it.

 

He scrolls to show her he does.

 

“That’s impossible.”

 

“Oh enjoying the thrill of the chase is fine, craving the distraction of the game – I sympathize entirely – but sentiment?”

 

Sherlock levels a look at her that makes her wonder if she’s made a new and powerful enemy - sentiment had him jumping to help her, and now?

 

Sherlock looks at the phone in his hand, and the unflattering photos within in.

 

“This is your heart,” he murmurs. “And you should never let it rule your head.”

 

“Please,” she says, voice barely above a whisper. She feels her eyes start to water.

 

He zeroes in on her, eyeing her with such intensity she steels herself to resist the urge to step back as he advances. 

 

Instead, he takes a seat again, eyes full of concern, and it knocks the wind out of her.

 

“This isn’t what you need me for, the code” Sherlock says. “This is your last chance: if you give me your honesty, you still have my help.”

 

She sinks down into her seat as well, staring in disbelief.

 

“And why would you do that?”

 

“Because, Miss Adler, you’re sitting in the client’s chair. That’s what you are,” Sherlock says. 

 

Quietly, seeing his friend in a new light, John takes his seat as well.

 

.

 

Jim Moriarty tsks, reading a text on his phone. It glows in the dim light of this little coat check area Mycroft found himself pulled into. 

 

Before he can protest, Moriarty shakes his head, then looks up at Mycroft with a smile. 

 

“Looks like you lost,” he says gently.

 

He holds up the text so Mycroft can read it.

 

_ 747 TOMORROW 6:30PM HEATHROW _

 

“She managed to get Sherlock to solve it for her. How long do you think he took, a minute? Five? That’s all it takes: one lonely naïve man desperate to show off, and a woman clever enough to make him feel special.”

 

Mycroft stares at the phone. Just two lines of text, tanking a year’s worth of work.

 

“You lost to Sherlock Holmes, to The Woman too, even though you were clever enough to have figured it all out first, all from a dark little room, all by yourself,” Moriarty says softly. Then he smiles, laughter in his voice as he pictures it, “Not like Sherlock, running up and down London without a clue.”

 

“You’re all alone,” Moriarty tells Mycroft, expression serious now. He stares long enough that Mycroft pulls his gaze from the phone.

 

“Like me,” Moriarty adds, once he has his attention.

 

He gives Mycroft a winning smile, changing tone at the drop of a hat.

 

“It’s all been a wonderful audition,  _ bravo,” _ Moriarty says.

 

Mycroft frowns and Moriarty cuts him off with a finger to his lips.

 

“Nuh-uh-uh, and I can still make it all go away -  _ if _ you come work for me. Coventry can still happen, no one need be the wiser. And big brother won’t be disgraced,” Moriarty says.

 

“I’d just be trading one jailer for another,” Mycroft says.

 

“Oh no, no, no, we’d have  _ so _ much more  _ fun. _ Let me prove it to you,” Moriarty says. 

 

Moriarty looks at him expectantly, and Mycroft starts to wonder whether he ever really had a choice.

 

.

 

Irene Adler, swathed in black cloth, is forced to her knees. She sends a last text, ignoring the man yelling at her in a foreign language. The one on her other side holds a curved sword. 

 

She sends the message, locking the phone once again, and lets them take it. Eyes wet, she closes them slowly.

 

Then she hears it - that text notification she set as a joke (or was it a come-on?). Her eyes snap open and she hears the most impossible thing, a voice she hadn’t thought she’d hear again.

 

“When I say run,  _ run.” _

 

The executioner lifts the sword to strike - and Irene smiles. 


	13. Chapter 13

Mycroft fidgets. 

 

He’s been fidgeting all hour, and now he can see the runway outside his little aircraft window as the plane continues its landing.

 

He feels a hand on his arm - barely - and jumps.

 

“Are you alright?” Moriarty asks.

 

Mycroft rounds on him.

 

“You lied to me! The entire time, she was working with you! She wouldn’t have set her sights on Sherlock at all, if not for you!”

 

Moriarty laughs with real mirth.

 

“You didn’t exactly keep your end of the bargain either, did you? Instead of going after the phone for me, you tried to cut her a deal,” he says. “A nice touch, although your loyalty is  _ thoroughly _ misplaced.”

 

“And what would  _ you _ know about loyalty,” Mycroft says darkly. He crosses his arms and fumes, glaring out the window.

 

“Oh, come now,” Moriarty says expansively, “we’re here to have a nice time.”

 

His persuasion is lost on Mycroft, who’s been distracted by the sights he can make out in the distance. Paris is persuasion all on its own.

 

.

 

Mycroft’s restlessness continues as they disembark - as he looks around at his new guards it starts to sink in, in reality this time, that Moriarty may have pulled this off - at least for now.

 

The deceit is simple: under the guise of French Intelligence, Moriarty is stealing Mycroft Holmes away for the weekend. In exchange for the cybersecurity expertise the British Government is supplying, France has offered to put resources into a pesky problem the British have been having with smuggled firearms - a problem behind which Moriarty pulls all the strings anyway.

 

On the airfield, Mycroft’s regular guards were traded for another set. Suits and shades; he figured they all looked alike to politicians and bureaucrats, and was proven right when Smallwood sent him off without so much as a goodbye.

 

But Mycroft could scarcely believe it’d worked until he set foot on Parisian soil.

 

Disbelief turns into excitement as steps to the edge of the pavement, watching vehicles pass. 

 

“Is this the first time you’ve been abroad alone?” Moriarty asks. Mycroft doesn’t have to look at him to know he finds this all quite humorous.

 

“There was a school trip, and then the time we went on a family holiday in the winter,” Mycroft says absent-mindedly. He doesn’t bother counting the many times he’s been on foreign missions, confined to aircraft interiors and hotel rooms and the occasional formal function.

 

He must seem so naive. But really, Mycroft could care less if Moriarty thinks of him as some poor bumpkin. He’s not about to waste what little freedom he has.

 

He starts down one direction, not even knowing where he’s heading, but doesn’t get farther than a few steps before a car pulls up besides them.

 

“Slow down,” Moriarty says, ushering him into the car. “You have all weekend. And if all goes well, the next trip will be longer, and we can go farther. Before you know it, you’ll be circling the globe with no one the wiser.”

 

If all  _ doesn’t _ go well, Mycroft is keeping his eyes and ears open for evidence that’ll keep Moriarty locked up tight enough he can’t get to Mycroft. He’s done nothing yet that that he can’t explain away as blackmail, or so he tells himself.

 

Moriarty drums his fingers as the car starts, Mycroft peeks out the window. 

 

“Where do you want to go? Champs-Élysées? The museums? A club?” he asks. “You can do anything you like, so long as you blend in. You can do that right?”

 

“Chocolates,” Mycroft answers, still looking out the window. So there is a point to this metropolitan trip after all, to rid Mycroft of the effects of his long isolation. Blending won’t be a problem, but he appreciates being underestimated.

 

It’s a moment before Moriarty realizes Mycroft isn’t joking.

 

“Really?” he asks with a laugh. “Alright.” 

 

He taps the back of the driver’s seat, and off they go.

 

.

 

The door to 221B flies open with a bang, and Sherlock appears in all his bloody, gorey, glory.

 

John gingerly lowers the corner of his newspaper, and stares.

 

“Well, that was tedious,” Sherlock pants. He’s holding a stick- no, is that a harpoon?

 

“Did you- you went on the tube like that?” John asks. He doesn’t want to know what the red stuff is.

 

“None of the cabs would take me!” He sounds indignant, storming off a moment later.

 

“I wonder why,” John deadpans.

 

.

 

Three and a half showers later Sherlock emerges clean, dry, fluffy, and full of sulk. Swathed in blue silk, he throws both the harpoon and a tantrum around the flat.

 

“I  _ need _ some!” he says nonsensically, as John continues to read the paper.

 

“There’s a military coup in Uganda, Sherlock, did you ever think of that?” John replies just as nonsensically. Sherlock mutters something about Mycroft’s possible involvement, which John chooses to ignore.

 

“Oh and there’s you,” John says brightly, turning it around so Sherlock can share in the delight of seeing this unflattering photo of him in a silly hat.

 

Sherlock makes more indignant squawking noises at that, so John goes back to the paper.

 

“Oh, there’s a Cabinet reshuffle,” John says.

 

“Nothing of importance?” Sherlock asks through gritted teeth, patience wearing thin.

 

“Aren’t they though?”

 

“Cases, John, I need a case!”

 

John makes a big show of flipping through the paper, and shaking it as if a nice murder might drop into his lap.

 

“ARGH.”

 

“What about the blog? Haven’t people written in?” John asks.

 

Sherlock makes a hugely disgusted face at him.

 

“What?” John says. Perfectly legitimate question, that was.

 

Sherlock stomps over to the table and flips open John’s laptop.

 

“Your laptop is  _ right there _ ,” John says, exasperated, gesturing toward Sherlock’s computer which was, indeed, gathering dust at the end of the table.

 

“Dear Mr. Sherlock Holmes,” Sherlock starts reading in a silly voice. “I can’t find Bluebell anywhere. Please please _ please _ can you help?”

 

“Bluebell?”

 

“A  _ rabbit _ ,” Sherlock says viciously. 

 

“Oh.”

 

“And there’s more!” He adopts the silly voice once again. “Before Bluebell disappeared, it turned luminous, like a fairy! Then the next morning, Bluebell was gone. Hutch still locked, no sign of a forced entry.”

 

“Wow, Sherlock, that was really good, you should be a children’s presenter, on TV,” John says. 

 

Sherlock stares back. “Yes, brilliant, we must phone Lestrade, the neighborhood’s trusty detective inspector. There is a glowing bunny on the loose and we must find it by the end of this week’s episode.”

 

John sighs.

 

“Fine, right, we could, could-”

 

The doorbell rings, saving him from suggesting idea he really didn’t have. John holds in his sigh of relief, raising instead an eyebrow at Sherlock.

 

“Single ring?” he says.

 

“Maximum pressure just under the half second,” Sherlock replies.

 

There was only one explanation: A client. 


	14. Chapter 14

“Do you know Dartmoor, Mr. Holmes?” their client asks quietly.

 

John glances over to see that Sherlock is fastidiously pretending to be asleep. He kicks him. 

 

“Hm? No,” Sherlock says, covertly throwing John a scowl.

 

“It’s an amazing place. It’s like nowhere else. It’s sort of,” the client trails off, thinking. “Bleak, but beautiful.”

 

“Yes, yes, get to the point about the gruesome murder you mentioned,” Sherlock hurries him on.

 

The client opens his mouth, then closes it.

 

“Perhaps I should show you,” he says, rummaging around until he pulls out a DVD. Sherlock’s eyes widen, and John has a similar question going through his mind.

 

Alas, it is not security footage. Instead, a made-for-television documentary starts to play.

 

“Dartmoor,” the documentary narrator says with panache. “It’s always been a place of myth and legend, but is there something else lurking out here - something very real?”

 

Sherlock throws his head back and tries to nap in earnest. John kicks him again. 

 

He looks up in time to see the camera pan to an ominous looking sign. 

 

**BASKERVILLE**

 

The man sitting in the client’s chair suddenly appears on screen - he is being interviewed for this documentary, the title “Henry Knight” appearing on the screen to introduce him.

 

“I was just a kid,” on-screen Henry says. “It was dark, but I know what I saw. I  _ know _ what killed my father.”

 

“What killed your father?” Sherlock asks in-person Henry.

 

“Oh, I uh, I was just about to say,” in-person Henry says, gesturing to the television with the remote. Sherlock follows the line of sight to the television, which presently shows a crayon drawing of possibly Cerberus, complete with red eyes and drool. The on-screen title reads, “Henry’s drawing (aged 9).”

 

“I prefer to do my own interviewing,” Sherlock says drily.

 

Henry takes out a napkin and dabs nervously at his nose.

 

“There’s a place - it’s sort of a local landmark, called Dewer’s Hollow,” Henry says. He looks at Sherlock expectantly, but all he gets back is a blank stare.

 

“It’s an ancient name for the Devil,” Henry explains. The expression doesn’t change.

 

“Did you see the devil that night?” John asks, trying to help things along.

 

Henry looks at him, haunted for a moment, before replying in a quiet, defeated voice, “yes.”

 

“It was huge. Coal-black fur, with red eyes,” he recounts. Henry’s eyes are far away, reliving the terrible memory with years of nightmarish imaginings layered upon it.

 

“It got him, tore at him, and tore him apart,” Henry continues in hushed tones.

 

Sherlock watches him curiously now, and tilts his head as he does.

 

“I can’t remember anything else,” Henry says, looking up and breaking from his reverie. “They found me the next morning, just wandering on the moor. My dad’s body was never found.”

 

John glances at Sherlock.

 

“Enormous dog? Wolf?”

 

“Genetic experiment?” Sherlock shoots back.

 

Henry frowns. “Are you laughing at me, Mr. Holmes?”

 

“Baskerville’s a lab, isn’t it?” Sherlock says, voice airy and looking wholly unconcerned.

 

“My dad was always going on about the things they were doing at Baskerville; about the type of monsters they were breeding there. People used to laugh at him. At least the TV people took me seriously,” Henry says. Clearly there is some resentment tied up with the notion of these experiments. Sherlock throws John a look. He mouths, “Bluebell.”

 

“Henry,” John says hastily. “Whatever  _ did _ happen to your father, it was 20 years ago. Why come to us now?”

 

Henry is still looking at Sherlock skeptically, put off by his flippant attitude.

 

“Because of what happened last night,” Sherlock answers for him instead.

 

“Why? What happened last night?” John, ever faithful John, asks at just the right moment.

 

“How - how do you know?” Henry asks, blinking. Sherlock smirks a secret smirk, gone just as quickly as  it came.

 

“I didn’t know, I noticed,” Sherlock says. John does his best to avoid rolling his eyes, his eyebrows climbing toward his hairline instead as he glances at the floor, and scratches at his temple with a thumb.

 

“You came up from Devon on the first available train this morning. You had a disappointing breakfast and a cup of black coffee. The girl in the seat across the aisle fancied you. Although you were initially keen, you’ve now changed your mind. You are, however, extremely anxious to have your first cigarette of the day,” Sherlock fires off.

 

“How on earth did you notice all that?” Henry says. He’s astonished. Mission accomplished!

 

Sherlock points at Henry’s coat. “Punched-out holes where your ticket’s been checked.”

 

“Now you’re just showing off,” John says, sitting back.

 

“Of course I am, I  _ am _ a show-off, that’s what we  _ do _ .” Sherlock waves off the half-hearted reprimand and barrels on.

 

“The train napkin that you used to mop up the spilled coffee: the strength of the stain shows that you didn’t take milk. There are traces of ketchup on it and round your lips and on your sleeve. Cooked breakfast – or the nearest thing those trains can manage. Probably a sandwich,” Sherlock says.

 

Henry is in awe. The sheer magnitude of his marvel is almost enough to make up for the boring two hours they’d had before he arrived. Almost.

 

“How did you know it was disappointing?”

 

“Is there any other type of breakfast on a train?” Sherlock wants to pat himself on the back for that one. Witty. John should put it in the blog. “The girl – female handwriting’s quite distinctive. Wrote her phone number down on the napkin. I can tell from the angle she wrote at that she was sat across from you on the other side of the aisle.”

 

At this point, John gets up to check his email on the laptop.

 

When he returns, coffee mug in hand, Sherlock is somehow still at it. He doesn’t know how many exclamations Henry’s made. 

 

“It’s just after nine fifteen. You’re desperate. The first train from Exeter to London leaves at five forty-six a.m. You got the first one possible, so something important must have happened last night. Am I wrong?” Sherlock asks.

 

Henry stares, star-struck.

 

“No,” he says. “You’re right! You’re completely, exactly right.”

 

Sherlock gives John a smug look, and then steals his coffee.

 

“Bloody hell, I heard you were quick,” Henry whispers.

 

“It’s my job,” Sherlock says. He is preening.

 

John takes out his trusty notepad and decides to do some  _ real _ work.

 

“Henry, your parents both died and you were, what, 7?” John asks.

 

“Yes,” he says, not understanding. He does, though, a moment later. “I know.”

 

“That must have been quite a trauma,” John continues gently. “Have you ever thought that you maybe invented this story, to account for it?”

 

“That’s what Dr. Mortimer says,” Henry says, rummaging through his coat for a packet of cigarettes. “Can I?”

 

Sherlock glares jealously as Henry indulges in a smoke.

 

“Who?” John asks.

 

“His therapist,” Sherlock says, bored.

 

“Louise Mortimer, the reason I came back to Dartmoor,” Henry says. “She thinks I have to face my demons.”

 

“And is that what you did last night at Dewer’s Hollow, Henry?” Sherlock asks, hypnotized by the smoke. “Face down a demon, coal black fur, red eyes and all?”

 

Henry doesn’t answer, outright, remembering as he puffs away.

 

“It’s a strange place, the Hollow. Makes you feel so cold inside, so afraid.”

 

Sherlock waves a hand dismissively. 

 

“No. Stop. If I wanted poetry I’d read John’s emails to his girlfriends. Much funnier, too,” Sherlock says.

 

John is past letting these types of jibes get to him.

 

“What did you  _ see?” _ Sherlock asks.

 

“Footprints, in  _ exactly _ the same spot where I saw my father torn apart,” Henry says.

 

Sherlock’s facial muscles spasm for a brief moment. Exact spot! As if he could actually remember!

 

“Man’s or woman’s?” John asks before Sherlock can yell their client out the living room.

 

“Neither, they-”

 

Henry doesn’t get to finish, because Sherlock asks, sharply, “What else did you see?”

 

“Just the footprints, but-”

 

“Ugh,” Sherlock says, flopping back in the chair. “John, show him the door.”

 

“But-”

 

“No, sorry, Dr. Moritmer wins. Childhood trauma masked by an invented memory. How tedious. I think we’re done here.”

 

“But  _ what about _ the footprints?” Henry asks in a desperate last grab.

 

Sherlock shrugs. “Paw prints, probably. Could be anything, therefore nothing.”

 

“But Mr. Holmes, they were the footprints of a gigantic hound!” Henry pleads. 

 

Sherlock tilts his head, and squints up at Henry, who is standing, with John beside him holding his coat.

 

“Say that again,” Sherlock asks after a moment of consideration.

 

“I found th-”

 

“No, rewind. The last thing you just said to me, same words, same order.

 

“Mr. Holmes,” Henry says, eyes up and thinking. “They were...the footprints of a gigantic hound..?”

 

Sherlock stares some more, and Henry is disquieted. John starts to set the coat down, then thinks better of it.

 

“I’ll take the case,” Sherlock says abruptly.

 

“W- really?!” Henry says; he’s pleasantly surprised. 

 

Sherlock stands, disappearing into his rooms in just a few quick strides.

 

“Um, sorry, you’re not coming then?” Henry calls after him.

 

“No, can’t leave London a the moment, far too busy. Don’t worry, you have my best man on the case,” Sherlock answers from inside his room.

 

Henry and John turn to look at each other.

 

“Does he..”

 

“John!” Sherlock calls out. “Do go on without me, will you?”

 

“So he means you,” Henry whispers, for clarification. John sighs a very, very long sigh.

 

“Could always rely on him, to send me the relevant data, as he never understands a word of it himself,” Sherlock says.

 

“I’m sorry, is he still talking about you?” Henry asks John.

 

John just hands him his coat before grabbing his own, ushering Henry to the door.

 

“Should we just leave? Will he keep doing that, talking to himself?” Henry asks.

 

“Yep,” John answers. 

 

.

 

John gets as far as the train station before he gets a text.

 

_ Where are you??? _

_ SH _

 

_ We’re meant to go _

_ to Dartmoor, John, _

_ forget the milk!! _

_ SH _

 

Henry steps onto the platform, then turns back to look at John, who is staring with disbelief at his phone.

 

“Um, are you coming?” Henry asks.

 

“You go on, Henry,” John says. “We’ll catch up with you later.”

 

John turns on his heel, cursing the size of his thumbs as he texts back, reading aloud as he does.

 

“Are...you...fucking...kidding...me…” he types. “Where is the punctuation?? Blast it.”


	15. Chapter 15

Sherlock stands dramatically on the rocks of Dartmoor, hands on his hips, as his coat billows out behind him.

 

“So um,” John calls out at him from a rock roughly a step down. “Do you want me to take a picture?”

 

“Hm?” Sherlock says, not changing his pose, nor looking at John. “No, of course not, I’m not posing.”

 

“Sure, sure,” John mutters.

 

.

 

John points out at a cluster of buildings in the distance.

 

“That’s Grimpen Village,” he says. He points a bit in the other direction. “And that’s Baskerville. Sooo  _ that _ must be Dewer’s Hollow.”

 

Sherlock points too.

 

“What’s that?”

 

“Minefield?” John says, peering in that direction. “Technically Baskerville’s an army base, so I guess they’ve always been keen to keep people out.”

 

“Hm.”

 

.

 

“Two rooms please,” John says, leaning over the counter of Cross Keys Inn so he can get a better look for clues. The innkeeper, Gary, flips through his ledger as John notices a curious receipt and frees it from its pile.

 

“Aw, out of luck. Sorry, no doubles left, I’ll have to get you two separate rooms with singles,” Gary says, handing him keys.

 

John furrows his brows, replaying the conversation in his head.

 

“That is...literally what I just asked for,” John says. He takes the keys anyway. “Thanks.”

 

Gary smiles.

 

John drops his gaze to the map on the counter, a skull-and-crossbones image catching his eye on the site Sherlock’d pointed at earlier. He frowns.

 

“What’s that?” he asks, tapping on it. “Pirates?”

 

“Oh, no, no, the Great Grimpen Minefield, they call it,” Gary says, as if he were telling a story around a campfire.

 

“Uh huh.”

 

“It’s not what you think. It’s the Baskerville testing site. It’s been going for 80-odd years. I’m not sure anyone really knows what’s there any more.”

 

“Explosives?” John asks.

 

“Oh, not just explosives. Break into that place and – if you’re lucky – you just get blown up, so they say ... in case you’re planning on a nice wee stroll.”

 

“Ta. I’ll remember,” John says, nodding as he pockets his things and turning to leave.

 

“Aye. No, it buggers up tourism a bit, so thank God for the demon hound!” Gary says with a laugh.

 

John slowly turns back.

 

“Demon hound,” he asks, not quite a question.

 

“Aye, you seen the documentary? Was on television,” Gary says.

 

“Yeah. Quite recently, actually, yeah,” John says. Or, the first three minutes of it, at least.

 

“Aye. God bless Henry Knight and his monster from hell.”

 

“Ever seen it? The hound,” John asks, curious.

 

“Me? No,” Gary says. He nods toward a scrappy tour guide outside the inn. “Fletcher has.”

 

John turns.

 

“And remember - stay away from the moor at night if you value your lives!” this  _ Fletcher _ yells at a group of departing tourists.

 

“He runs the walks – the Monster Walks for the tourists, you know? He’s seen it,” Gary says.

 

John snorts. “Right.”

 

.

 

John finds Sherlock sharing a pint with Fletcher - literally. The two are passing a half-drunk pint of beer back and forth scarcely realizing it, poring over a bunch of dark and blurry photographs.

 

“Is that it? It’s not exactly proof, is it?” Sherlock says.

 

Fletcher holds the photo up to John as he approaches, and for a brief moment John thinks its to include him, courtesy, but then Sherlock cuts in.

 

“Sorry, John, I win,” Sherlock says. Whatever that means. It’s a scheme is what it is.

 

“Wait, wait, that’s not all,” Fletcher says, looking through the spread photos, talking slowly to buy time as he does. “People don’t like going up there, you know - to the Hollow. Gives them a… bad sort of feeling.”

 

“So it’s haunted,” Sherlock says sarcastically. “Is that supposed to convince me?”

 

“Nah, don’t be stupid, nothing like that, but I reckon there is something out there – something from Baskerville, escaped,” Fletcher says, looking up at them.

 

“A clone, a super dog?” Sherlock asks lightly. He turns to John and mouths “Bluebell” again. Like it’s supposed to be some kind of inside joke. John spreads his arms and shakes his head, conveying ‘I don’t know why you keep doing that!’ Sherlock ignores it.

 

“Maybe,” Fletcher says unperturbed. “God knows what they’ve been spraying on us all these years, or putting in the water. I wouldn’t trust ’em as far as I could spit.”

 

Sherlock peers into the pint of beer he’d been pretending to drink.

 

“Aha!” Fletcher hands over yet another blurry photo. Sherlock squints at it.

 

“Is that the best you’ve got?”

 

Fletcher’s eyes flick between Sherlock and John. Then he looks around, and leans in.

 

“I had a mate once who worked for the MOD. One weekend we were meant to go fishin’ but he never showed up – well, not ’til late. When he did, he was white as a sheet,” Fletcher says.

 

“He’d been sent down to some secret army place. Said he’d seen things,  _ things _ he never wanted to see again.”

 

_ “Things,”  _ Sherlock repeats, unconvinced.

 

“In the  _ labs,” _ Fletcher says. “The really  _ secret labs. _ He said he’s seen - terrible things. Rats as big as dogs, dogs the size of horses.”

 

He turns away to dig through his bag - and pulls out a concrete cast of a paw print - much larger than any paw has any right to be.

 

They stare.

 

“So do you - d’you just carry that around with you everywhere?” John asks.

 

.

 

.

  
  


They went to a petting zoo, once.

 

Sherlock remembers Mummy strapping baby Mycroft to his chest with an endlessly long and stretchy piece of fabric, and Sherlock being too horrified at the concept to do much to stop it. He was barely 9! He was in shock!

 

When she is done, Mycroft cranes his head up to look at Sherlock, drool dribbling down his chin.

 

“And those are sheep,” Sherlock says without inflection, pointing toward the fuzzy animals milling around in the pen. He knows now that he will never be a tour guide. Mycroft kicks a bit and coos at the animals.

 

At the sound of his baby noises, some animals turn and stare. A border collie not confined by the pen pads up to Sherlock and pants, wagging its tail. 

 

Sherlock smiles, and instinctively moves to crouch down to pet it.

 

A sharp squawk from Mycroft stops him in time; his brother flailing his little limbs at the sudden drop in altitude. Sherlock decides he will never become a pilot then either.

 

“Look, Mycroft, a dog,” Sherlock says, sticking his hand out for the collie to butt against.

 

Mycroft makes sad “nnnn” noises, as if preparing to cry, kicking his feet back and forth with such force the dog backs away. 

 

“Dogs are great! Much better than these fat sheep here. Stop being a crybaby, Mycroft,” Sherlock chastises. 

 

Mycroft sniffs, and hiccups, but the bawling does not happen. 

 

Instead, a llama walks right up to them, leans over, and licks Mycroft from his forehead to the top of his head.

 

Sherlock stares, eyes bulging.

 

There’s a little moment where everything seems to stop, the two of them too stunned by the turn of events to do anything.

 

And Mycroft starts to wail. Then he starts to sob. And sob, and sob, and sob.

 

Sherlock hadn’t known babies could hold so much water. 

 


	16. Chapter 16

Sherlock slows the car down as they reach the military-guarded entrance of the base. Then they stop, and get out still a ways away.

 

“Sherlock, they’re military, I don’t think you can just sneak in here as you normally do,” John says, exasperated. His friend comes to an abrupt stop.

 

“I swiped MYCROFT.”

 

Sherlock holds up a flash drive, which John stares at. He knows he’s meant to be impressed somehow, but can’t quite fathom it. 

 

“Well, I did ages ago, just in case,” Sherlock says.

 

“Sorry, I don’t understand,” John says. 

 

“Defense-cracking program. He named it after himself, the big-headed little bugger. Opens practically any door,” Sherlock explains, uncapping the drive and connecting it to the back of a biometric-coded touchpad. “Especially the government ones.”

 

John looks impressed.

 

“Seems like a hell of a security flaw,” he says, awe lingering in his voice.

 

“It does, unfortunately, require a bio-security step,” Sherlock mutters.

 

“Ah.” John nods sagely. Then gives up. “What is that?”

 

“Bit of a DNA check. It’ll open, but he’ll know it’s me,” Sherlock says. “But by then, we’ll have gotten in, so!” Sherlock flings the door open with a flourish, and gestures toward John. 

 

“Voila. After you.”

 

“Huh. Right then.”

 

.

They march straight into a lab, where a bevy of people in lab coats startle - but only for a moment. They soon resume to their experiments, covered in face masks and gloves and dealing with tanks and cages.

 

Sherlock and John continue straight down the room, until halfway through Sherlock stops and turns on his heel, spinning in place to look at a cage where a monkey is shrieking and hurtling itself against the bars.

 

“How many animals do you keep down here?” Sherlock asks a passing scientist. 

 

“Lots,” he answers without so much as looking up.

 

“Any ever escape?”

 

The scientist looks up, squinting at Sherlock as if noticing him for the first time. A woman in a lab coat strides over.

 

“And you are?” she asks.

 

The first scientist’s eyes go wide. “Sorry Dr. Stapleton,” he says, ducking away just as quickly.

 

“Stapleton,” Sherlock says, interested. He catches John’s eyes and widens his own in a supposedly meaningful expression that John just isn’t getting.

 

“Dr. Stapleton,” Sherlock says officially. “We’re here on inspection, to be accorded every courtesy. And what is your role here?”

 

She looks at them, rightfully skeptical, if only a little. John has his pen and pad out, taking notes, military bearing on full display. Sherlock stands around officiously, and they have both obviously made it past several levels of security to even be in here.

 

“I’m not at liberty to say,” Dr. Stapleton says.

 

“Oh but you are,” Sherlock says with a knowing smile. It unsettles her.

 

“I’ve a lot of fingers in a lot of pies,” she says. “I like to mix things up, genes mostly. Now and again actual fingers.”

 

Sherlock clasps his hands behind his back.

 

“Why did Bluebell have to die, Dr. Stapleton?” he asks. In the background, John scrunches up his face in disbelief.

 

“Excuse me?” she asks.

 

“The  _ rabbit?” _ John says.

 

“Hm,” Sherlock says, both affirmative and noncommittal. “Yes clearly an inside job, what with the hutch locked, no signs of forced entry.”

 

“Have you been talking to my daughter?” 

 

“You hadn’t realized it glowed in the dark?” Sherlock asks lightly.

 

His good humor turns as Sherlock notices the first scientist having scattered off toward the other end of the lab, now talking to a Major of some sort, who did not look happy at the prospect of a surprise inspection. And here they were, caught in the middle of the room. Sherlock turns just slightly to glance in the other directions - elevators, and aha, they were on the floor, opening.

 

“What the  _ hell’s _ going on?” the Major bellows, marching toward them.

 

“It’s all right, Major. I know  _ exactly _ who these gentlemen are,” comes a voice behind Sherlock. He looks over the man whose stepped out the elevator toward them; yet another scientist.

 

“You do?” the Major asks. “Because the  _ last time _ someone was sent from Home Office-”

 

Stapleton ducks out of the conversation then.

 

The man smiles. 

 

“Yeah. I’m getting a little slow on face, but Mr. Holmes here isn’t someone I expected to show up in the first place,” he says. He and Sherlock shake hands. “He is who he says he is, Major. There’s obviously been a mistake, this is Mycroft Holmes. Brussels, was it? I had the pleasure of making his acquaintance at a WHO conference.”

 

“Vienna,” Sherlock says.

 

The Major locks eyes with the man, clearly not entirely convinced.

 

“On your head be it, Dr. Frankland,” the Major says, before turning away. The tense atmosphere seems to dissipate as he leaves, the rest of the lab workers caring not about this supposed lapse in security.

 

Dr. Frankland leads the detective duo toward the elevator, and they follow.

 

“This is about Henry Knight, isn’t it?” he asks once the elevator doors close.

 

“You called me Mr. Holmes,” Sherlock says. 

 

Dr. Frankland sneaks a glance at him, then turns fully.

 

“Yes I thought that was you. I knew he wanted help, but I didn’t realize he was going to contact Sherlock Holmes!” Dr. Frankland says with a grin. “Almost didn’t recognize you without the hat.”

 

Sherlock frowns deeply at him, the mere knowledge of his knowing about Mycroft unsettling. 

 

“Oh, your brother. Yes he mentioned you, mentions you quite a lot actually. He’s not exactly covert either, is he? Storms wherever he likes, used to throwing his weight around,” Dr. Frankland says.

 

Sherlock sucks in air through his teeth. The silence is awkward as they walk to Frankland’s office.

 

“How is he?”

 

“Fine,” Sherlock bites out.

 

“I love the blog, Dr. Watson,” Frankland says to John.

 

“Oh! Cheers,” John says. He’s pleasantly surprised.

 

“You knew Henry Knight?” Sherlock interrupts.

 

“Well, I knew his dad better. He had all sorts of mad theories about this place. Still, he was a good friend,” Frankland says.

 

“Was he?” 

 

Frankland takes a breath, then thinks better of it. The walls have ears, apparently.

 

“Listen,” he says, handing Sherlock a card. “I’d love to help, but. Can’t now.”

 

Sherlock looks at the card.

 

“I’ll be in touch.”

 

.

 

Sherlock and John walk up to a large manor, Sherlock raising his collar as they do.

 

“Oh, not that again,” John says.

 

“What?”

 

“The  _ collar, _ the  _ cheekbones,” _ John starts.

 

“I can’t do anything about my bone structure,” Sherlock says. “And I’m cold.”

 

“Looking all mysterious and cool,” John says, exasperated.

 

“Well, thank you.”

 

They ring the doorbell. Or, well, Sherlock rings the doorbell as John stares at him like he wants to throttle him.

 

Henry opens the door.

 

“Hi,” he says. “Come in, come in.”

 

“This,” John looks around, wiping his feet on the doormat. Frankly, the manor is enormous. “Are you um.”

 

He glances at Sherlock for assistance, but Sherlock’s already run off.

 

“Rich?” John asks.

 

“Yeah,” Henry answers casually. “Kitchen? I’ll put on some tea.”

 

John and Henry sit across each other at the table, as Sherlock observes Henry intently. Henry spoons two lumps of sugar into his tea, and Sherlock moves to do the same.

 

“I keep seeing a couple of words,” he says. 

 

John takes out his notebook to write.

 

“Liberty,” Henry says. “In.”

 

Sherlock stops midway from taking a drink. He furrows his brows, trying to recall something that slips away.

 

“That’s it?” John asks. He’s written “Liberty Inn” on the paper.

 

Henry leans over.

 

“No, one n.” 

 

John crosses the last letter out. 

 

“Liberty in death, isn’t that the expression?” Sherlock says softly still grasping for the thread of a clue. “The only true freedom.”

 

“So, Sherlock’s got a plan,” John says. Henry turns to him hopefully.

 

“Yes,” Sherlock confirms. “We take you back out onto the moor.”

 

“Okay…” Henry says tentatively.

 

“And then see if anything attacks you.”

 

“What?!” John’s the one that rounds on him, appalled by the suggestion.

 

“Should clear things up,” Sherlock says, unbothered.

 

“You want me to go out there, at night?” Henry looks hopeless.

 

_ “That’s _ your plan?” John clearly thinks its insane.

 

“Mm.” Sherlock stirs and drinks his tea. “If there  _ is _ a monster out there, John, there’s only one thing to do: find out where it lives.”

 

.

 

Against better judgement, the three of them trek out onto the moors after dark. 

 

Henry leads, knowing the Hollow better than these detective-tourists, and  _ crunch crunch crunch _ they go.

 

They shine their lights into the dark, to better see the rocky, uneven terrain, but it barely cuts through the fog. 

 

At the sound of rustling, John falls behind, trying to find the source of the noise. A loud flutter erupts from a nearby tree John can’t quite locate, followed by the screech of an owl.

 

“Jesus,” he whispers to himself.

 

Not the owl, he was barely startled. But there is a light in the distance, blinking persistently.

 

“Sher-” Sherlock’s gone. John sighs, digging his notebook out of his pocket. The blinking follows a pattern, and John recognizes it. He watches, and pens the letters one by one.

 

U

M

Q

R

A

 

He frowns.

 

“Umqra?” he whispers. He scribbles the letters again. MQRAU. QRAUM. RAUMQ. No, it’s not anything he recognizes.

 

“Sherlock,” he says, quiet enough they don’t hear him. He has to jog a bit to catch up.

 

“Met a friend of yours,” he hears Sherlock telling Henry.

 

“What?”

 

“Dr. Frankland.”

 

“Oh, right. Bob, yeah.”

 

“Seems pretty concerned about you.”

 

“He’s a worrier, bless him. He’s been very kind to me since I came back.”

 

“He knew your father.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“But he works at Baskerville. Didn’t your dad have a problem with that?”

 

“Well.” Clearly Henry wants to defend this, but doesn’t know well enough to do so. “Mates are mates,” he settles for instead. “They agreed never to talk about work, Uncle Bob and my dad.”

 

Henry stops, pointing ahead.

 

“Dewer’s Hollow.”

 

Sherlock creeps up behind him and looks down the steep drop ahead of them. The path down descends into darkness and swirling fog.

 

They march onward, and Sherlock hears a buzz that magnifies into a sort of thrum, but he can’t pin down the source. He shakes it off as they go, and they go slowly in the dark.

 

Then they hear a howl.

 

Sherlock startles, and John doesn’t think he’s ever seen Sherlock quite this startled.

 

Sherlock shines his torch upwards toward the sound, and Henry stares upon the sight as well. John squints, and his eyes are good, but from his position he can’t make out what they’re seeing.

 

“Oh my God, Oh my God,” Henry repeats over and over. 

 

Sherlock, seeming to recoil with horror, stands his ground shakily. He and Henry make a slow and clumsy scramble backwards up the hill side.

 

John jogs up to meet them near the top.

 

“You heard that too?” he asks.

 

Sherlock pushes past him, but Henry nods. 

 

“We  _ saw _ it,” he says. “We saw it.”

 

John turns towards Sherlock, who is still walking away.

 

“No. I didn’t see anything,” Sherlock says.  Henry chases after him, and John follows.

 

“What? What are you talking about?” Henry cries. Sherlock doesn’t answer.

 

.

 

“I’m not crazy,” Henry says, voice shaking, as John helps him into his house.

 

“Why would he say that? Why would he  _ say _ that? It-it was there! It was. I saw it.  _ He _ saw it,” Henry says, taking a seat on his sofa. “This is good news. Right? He saw it too.”

 

“Right,” John says, fixing him a mug of something. “Listen, Henry, I need you to - try to relax, please.”

 

Henry takes the mug.

 

“Alright?”

 

He nods.

 

“I’m going to check on Sherlock now,” John says, a slow retreat. Henry nods, not looking up.

 

.

 

John finds Sherlock back at the inn, sitting in front of the fire staring off intensely into nothing, as he so often did.

 

“Well, he is in a pretty bad way. He’s manic, totally convinced there’s some mutant superdog roaming the moors,” John says, taking a seat beside Sherlock. “Which there isn’t, though, is there? Because if people knew how to make mutant superdogs, we’d know. They’d be for  _ sale.  _ I mean, that’s how it works.”

 

He remembers something, and digs out the notebook again.

 

“Right, Sherlock, out on the moor, I saw someone signaling,” he says, flipping open to the page. “I think it’s Morse - U M Q R A, mean anything to you?”

 

John looks over, and trails off. Sherlock’s been staring into the fire the whole time, but he looks far from serene or contemplative, as he usually might.

 

“Are you…” He’s never had to do this before.

 

Sherlock takes a shaky breath.

 

“I saw it too,” he says, keep his voice as level as he can manage.

 

“What?” John is still processing.

 

“I saw it too, John,” Sherlock says under his breath. “Henry’s right.”

 

John leans forward in his chair.

 

“Just. Just a minute. You saw what?” he asks.

 

“A gigantic hound, out in Dewer’s Hollow,” Sherlock says slowly, over enunciating his consonants in a failed bid for detachment.

 

John grins, about to laugh, but stops seeing Sherlock lower his eyes, then look away. He wonders if he’s being played.

 

“Um, Sherlock. We have to be rational about this, right? I mean, you of all people…” John shifts uncomfortably. “Let’s just stick to the facts, yes?”

 

“Once you’ve ruled out the impossible, whatever remains – however improbable – must be true,” Sherlock murmurs.

 

“Meaning?”

 

Sherlock lifts a hand for him to see.

 

John frowns.

 

_ “Look,  _ John,” he says. 

 

A tremor.

 

“I’m  _ afraid _ , John, me. Always been able to keep myself distant, but now? I’m a mess,” he says. Even his  _ voice _ shakes. Sherlock takes another strained breath, then lets it out again, slow and measured. “My body is betraying me.”

 

His voice, still soft, takes on an edge of marvel.

 

“Interesting, yes? Emotions, the grit on the lens, the fly in the ointment,” Sherlock says. 

 

“Right,” John says slowly, not following.

 

A small smile creeps into Sherlock’s expression, an odd look what with his eyes tinged in red.

 

“Sherlock?” John asks. The smile is somehow stranger than seeing his friend in fear. 

 

Sherlock takes another shaky breath, closing off his expression.

 

“Leave,” he demands.

 

Well, that’s not what he expected.

 

“What do you mean  _ leave,  _ I just got h-”

 

“You’ve been of absolutely no help this entire trip, and now at the crucial moment of the sighting of this hound you were, what, too distracted by the lights? Figured they were winking out a message at you?”

 

John stares in disbelief. He tells himself it’s the fear talking, but, no, this- not even on the first  _ day _ had Sherlock so belittled him. He stands and walks out without another word.

 

.

 

Huffing, John marches briskly down the dark road, torch in hand. He stops a moment, seeing that blinking light again, then steels his resolve and continues toward it.

 

It’s not a short walk all the way up the hill, but near the crest of it he sees a car - with its headlights on. 

 

Cautious now, John moves slowly towards it. A few steps later he thinks better of it and turns off his torch. 

 

He’s only a car or two away from the car in question when he realizes what he’s seen. The car bounces, squeaking a bit, and he can make out a woman’s foot and a man’s hand in the windows.

 

“Jesus,” John mutters, running a hand down his face. As coupling movement rocks the parked car, the bodies also apparently knock into whatever is turning on the headlights, which flash on and off.

 

He turns away with a heavy, exasperated sigh, only to be cut off by a text alert.

 

_ Henry’s therapist currently in Cross Keys Pub  _

_ SH _

 

_ So? _ he writes back.

 

The next text is slow to appear - it turns out to be an image that takes a few moments to download.

 

It’s of Louise Mortimer, at a bar. 

 

John sucks on his teeth.

 

She is very much his type.

 

_ Interview her? _

 

_ Why should I?  _ John texts, already heading back.

 

Sherlock doesn’t respond, but he doesn’t exactly have to.

 


	17. Chapter 17

A landline rings, with its old-fashioned _trill-trill_ breaking through Mycroft’s slumber.

 

Mycroft opens his eyes and looks out blearily past his mountain of pillows. He vaguely remembers some travel before his eyes focus on the phone on the nightstand beside his hotel bed.

 

He could reach out and pick up the receiver. He should. It’s morning, he can tell by the light. Then it’d stop ringing, and he should hear whatever the person on the other end of the line has to say. Is it time to check out, perhaps?

 

He should answer it, but the bed is so soft, and it would be so easy to drif-

 

.

 

Mycroft yawns, vaguely aware of the presence of someone beside him.

 

He buries himself further under the duvet before cracking an eye open - only to find Jim Moriarty peering down from right above him.

 

“Morning, princess.”

 

Mycroft groans loudly to let his annoyance be known, and then pulls the duvet over his head.

 

“I called to let you know breakfast was ready on the terrace, but it’s been sitting out for an hour now. Should I call again, or will you be another hour?” Moriarty asks.

 

Mycroft mumbles something hostile and unintelligible, and Moriarty walks off.

 

That’s right, Mycroft remembers, a small unbidden smile curling his lips. He’s still overseas.

 

Moriarty had said something about his room being right next door and something about a terrace the day before but Mycroft hadn’t really been listening, and still scarcely cared, though he did want breakfast now.

 

He rolls out of bed once Moriarty has gone, and stumbles a bit on his way to the shower.

 

Mycroft pokes his head out the terrace door a while later, wrapped in a fluffy bathrobe, and sees Moriarty drinking coffee while looking out over the city.

 

There is truly a decadent spread of breakfast foods, freshly sent and untouched, so Mycroft takes a seat and digs in.

 

“I’m surprised you didn’t buy a computer yesterday,” Moriarty says.

 

Mycroft frowns into his jam covered pastry. “I’d cause too much trouble.” Trouble would be too tempting, is what he really means.

 

Moriarty tsks. “We’ll have to rid you of that habit,” he says.

 

“Is this because you’re jealous I’m friends with Sherlock and you’re not?” Mycroft asks suspiciously.

 

Moriarty looks surprised, and genuinely so. But Mycroft doesn’t buy it for a second. He gives him a flat, knowing look.

 

“Oh, don’t look like that,” Moriarty says with a smile. “Sherlock Holmes plays for the other side. He is a complete necessity. Pulling at the threads to unravel every stitch I make. Otherwise it’s too easy. But you? You’re a treat.”

 

Mycroft scrunches up his face in an expression of comical utter disbelief, shoveling more croissant into his mouth as he does. More frightening than the idea of being seen as prey is how easy Moriarty is making it all.

 

“I thought we could look at some art today,” Moriarty says casually. Too casually. Mycroft narrows his eyes again, letting him know that _he_ knows he’s up to something. Moriarty just laughs. Again. Mycroft is _not_ that funny.

 

.

 

Henry swings his front door open to find Sherlock standing there, having just knocked, looking bright and peppy this fine morning.

 

“Morning!” he says, pushing his way in.

 

Henry trudges in after him to the kitchen.

 

“Oh. How are you feeling?” Sherlock asks, eyeing him carefully from across the room.

 

“I...didn’t sleep so well,” Henry admits. He looks like it too.

 

“Shame. Shall I make you some coffee?” Sherlock says, rummaging through the cabinets without waiting for an answer. Henry walks over to him.

 

“Listen, last night,” Henry sighs heavily. “Why did you say you hadn’t seen anything? I mean, I only saw the hound for a minute but-”

 

Sherlock leans over, forearms on the kitchen island, and stares into Henry’s eyes.

 

“Hound.”

 

“What?”

 

“Why call it that? Why a hound?”

 

Henry’s taken aback.

 

“It’s odd, isn’t it? Strange choice of words - archaic,” Sherlock says. Then he gets up and starts spooning great amounts of instant coffee and sugar into cups. “That’s why I took the case.”

 

“I don’t know!” Henry just looks frustrated.

 

Sherlock tilts his head, studying Henry’s expression.

 

Then his eyes widen in epiphany.

 

.

 

Sherlock strides back to the village, falling into step beside John outside the inn.

 

“Did you get anywhere with that Morse code?” Sherlock asks.

 

“Er, no.” John looks oddly embarrassed by - something, so Sherlock leans in, craning his head to see John’s face better. John shrugs him off.

 

“What about Louise Mortimer? Anywhere with her?”

 

His expression turns sour.

 

“Nope.”

 

“Hm.”

 

“Listen, last night-”

 

John whirls around on him, and Sherlock stops dead in his tracks.

 

He knows, somehow, that an apology might make this all go away. He can’t bring himself to do it.

 

“Something happened to me,” Sherlock says instead.

 

“Yeah? Sherlock Holmes got _scared.”_

 

Sherlock huffs, short.

 

“Fear, no, more than that, _doubt,”_ he explains.

 

“Couldn’t believe you’d seen a monster.”

 

“Exactly!” Sherlock says, relieved John is catching on once again.

 

John looks unimpressed. Sherlock purses his lips.

 

“I’ve always been able to trust my sense, the evidence of my own eyes - until last night. I saw it, but I didn’t believe what I was seeing. Ergo: how?”

 

John still looks unimpressed.

 

Sherlock groans, exaggerated and loudly frustrated, holding his head in his hands.

 

“John,” he says very seriously. “Although you have never been the most luminous of people, as a conductor of light, you are unbeatable.”

 

“I- what?” John gives him a funny once over, wondering whether there were any substances he missed.

 

“Last night, while I was busy being out of my head seeing things I had no business seeing, you mentioned a code,” Sherlock says, walking onward again, just expecting John to follow - for which John is glad, because, well, the code was, well.

 

“Um, about that code-”

 

Sherlock stops without warning again, scribbling on a notebook John then recognizes is his own, having been liberated from his own pocket.

 

“H O U N D,” Sherlock says, showing him the letters, all capitalized.

 

“You...think it’s an acronym,” John says.

 

“I think-” Sherlock stops short.

 

“Think what?” John asks, before seeing what exactly has shut Sherlock Holmes up in the doorway of the cafe.

 

“Oh,” Bob Frankland greets the two of them. “Fancy seeing you here, I suppose.”

 


	18. Chapter 18

“Not everyday you have Sherlock Holmes in your house!” Frankland says brightly as he unlocks the front door to his home. He’d seemed taken aback at the request at first, but with the alternative being discussing Henry at the cafe, well, he’s welcoming them in now with open arms.

 

“I- silly me, forgot to pick up the coffee we went to the cafe for in the first place!” Sherlock says. “Do you have any tea, perhaps? Could I borrow your kitchen?”

 

A hesitant “yeah, sure,” is barely out of Frankland’s mouth before Sherlock’s disappeared into the man’s kitchen, rummaging around.

 

John gives the scientist a hesitant smile. 

 

“I think I’ll go help him,” Frankland says, feeling like a bad host.

 

“No, no he’s er, peculiar about how he takes it,” John says, guessing that Sherlock needed some time to dig around for - whatever he was looking for. 

 

He clears his throat and offers John a seat.

 

“So you knew Henry’s father?” John asks.

 

Frankland laughs, but it’s a bit sad. 

 

“Ah, yeah, we went way back. It was such a tragedy when he passed away, and what with Henry so young. I’ve tried to help but - the trauma’s really stuck with him,” Frankland says.

 

“But...his dad had a lot of problems with Baskerville, didn’t he? That didn’t get in the way of the friendship?” 

 

Sherlock chooses that moment to appear, carrying three cups of steaming tea, which he then insists on pressing into everyone’s hands.

 

“Sorry,” Sherlock says lightly. “Forgot you already had coffee, made three cups. Please.”

 

Frankland gives him an awkward smile but accepts it, and takes a sip. He scrunches up his face as he does.

 

“That is...a lot of sugar!” he says, trying to laugh it off. He coughs. “Henry’s father, well, we tried not to talk about work.”

 

“Mm, so he said,” Sherlock says.

 

“We tried not to let something like that get between years of having known each other,” Frankland says. He takes another sip of the tea, then grimaces.

 

“Something like that,” Sherlock repeats. “Your life’s work?”

 

Frankland hesitates. He sets down his mug and picks up the coffee again.

 

“We didn’t really talk about it,” he says. 

 

“So what  _ is _ it that you do?” John asks. 

 

“Oh! I’m a virologist. Study viruses,” Frankland says.

 

“How to cure them?” John asks.

 

“Or how to build them?” Sherlock says just as quickly.

 

“No well.” Frankland half shrugs. “Just  _ study _ them really. The world’s full of odd ones we don’t know much about.”

 

Sherlock sits back. “Glow-in-the-dark bunnies and deadly viruses in the same lab - what exactly  _ is _ it that Baskerville does? Any truth the the conspiracy theories?”

 

“Do you build monsters there, Dr. Frankland?” Sherlock asks.

 

He gives them a crooked smile.

 

“Now you really do sound like him.”

 

“Any truth to his theories?”

 

Frankland looks sad. “Big killer dogs? Sounds a bit antiquated for an everything-goes research lab like Baskerville, doesn’t it?”

 

Sherlock frowns, mulling over those choice of words.

 

“No he...Henry knows this too, though, understandably, he’s having a hard time with it. His father wasn’t well. And toward the end of his life his theories, his  _ obsessions _ , had taken over his life.  And Henry? He’s been suffering from the same...affliction.”

 

“You think he’s crazy,” John says. 

 

Frankland sighs. “I think he needs help. He’s been going to therapy but...honestly I’m not sure whether it’s doing him more harm or good, coming back to Dartmoor like this, trying to reopen his father’s case.”

 

“I’m sorry, case?” John asks.

 

Frankland coughs, the coffee going down the wrong pipe, and shakes his head. He sets the cup down. Sherlock nudges the mug of tea toward Frankland. 

 

“That’s exactly the thing, bringing you two into this, isn’t it? Sees something where there’s nothing and  I - I’m afraid Henry’s going to get hurt, Dr. Watson. Mr. Holmes,” Frankland says.

 

Sherlock downs the rest of his own tea, then stands abruptly.

 

“Where’s your bathroom?” he asks. John stares at him, stunned at his ridiculous sense of timing.

 

“Down,” Frankland says, slightly off-kilter, pointing toward a hallway, “that hall and to the right.”

 

Sherlock darts down the hall, and John turns back to Frankland.

 

“Worse how?” he asks.

 

Frankland thinks.

 

“It was a terrible event for a young child to have witnessed.” He glances up at John. “You know how he died, right? Fell, hit his head. But out in the dark, all alone, it must have been a nightmare for Henry. Afterwards he was convinced about the hound.”

 

“He never really stopped believing, not entirely, but it didn’t have such a hold over his life until a few years ago. Now it plagues him endlessly,” Frankland says. 

 

“I’m.” He purses his lips for a moment, serious. “I’m afraid of what he might do.”

 

John is about to ask what Frankland thinks that would be, but Sherlock barges back into the room only to swoop back out to the foyer.

 

“Sorry to be abrupt, stomach problems, I must leave. We’ll let you know about Henry, yes? John, let’s go.”

 

John thanks Frankland for the tea and hops up to follow.

 

.

 

“Jesus, Sherlock.” John wonders whether Sherlock has become immune to exasperation at this point.”

 

“Liberty,  _ Indiana,” _ Sherlock says. John blinks, remembering the letters Henry recounted.

 

“It’s a place?”

 

“Mm, and guess who has a mug from the University of Indiana?”

 

John’s eyes widen.

 

“What else did you find?”

 

Sherlock sighs, annoyed. “Besides the mug in his kitchen? Not much; study lock was easy enough to pick, but not much of value in there - all his research must be in the lab. We’ll have to go there.”

 

“So we’ve got, what, an acronym, a place?” John asks.

 

“HOUND must be some project, I think it is a drug. I think it’s in the  _ sugar _ .”

 

“Sugar?” John thinks back to Fletcher’s mention of something in the water, and wonders whether Sherlock is getting a bit too far-fetched.

 

“Nicked it from Henry’s. Put it in his tea, now we wait. In the meantime - back to Baskerville.”

 

“Explain- wait, how exactly are we going to get in a second time?” John frowns. “Mycroft again? Bit of a risk if we’re seen.”

 

“Bluebell,” Sherlock says, opaque as ever.

 

“Okay you’ve seriously got to drop this Bluebell thing,” John says. 

 

.

 

Mycroft lets out of a puff of air.

 

“When you said artwork I thought maybe you meant the Louvre,” Mycroft huffs. “Auction houses are for  _ selling _ art, not  _ seeing _ it.”

 

The bidding around them is ferocious, though the room itself is uncomfortably quiet. Paddles go up and down in silence and everyone is on their phone - they’re surrounded by dealers.

 

“Oh, shh,” Moriarty says, a hand on Mycroft’s arm. “They’re about to bring out the star of the show.”

 

Mycroft makes a big show of rolling his eyes.

 

They do bring it out: ‘The Upper Falls of the Reichenbach’ by Joseph Mallord William Turner, a watercolor piece of the roaring falls. It’s all a bit sepia and nostalgic, Mycroft thinks. He’d rather see a floor-to-ceiling sized Napoleon by Jacques-Louis David.

 

“How much do you think it’ll go for?” Moriarty murmurs.

 

Mycroft glances around the room. Judging by the crowd, the artist, and the period.

 

“Between 1.5 and 2 million euros, I suppose,” Mycroft says. “Not a bad way to transfer money.”

 

“How would you steal it?”

 

Mycroft gives him a flat look.

 

“Depends on where it’s going, and where I need it to be. At some point, security isn’t going to be as tight as the rest of the trip,” Mycroft says. 

 

“Breaking into a warehouse then?” 

 

“Good God no, just bribe the guard,” Mycroft says. He glances over to see Moriarty pressing his fist to his mouth, shoulders shaking with laughter.

 

_ “What?” _ Mycroft asks, annoyed. Did he  _ have _ to laugh at  _ everything? _

 

“Oh, no, no you misunderstand. You really aren’t much like your brother, are you? No clever tricks and slight of hand, you’re all business, you’re the pragmatic one.”

 

At Mycroft’s grumpy face, Moriarty changes tack. He smiles.

 

“Come on, we still have time to go to the museums before our flight.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Baskerville is almost done-! but trf won't go nearly as quickly.....mostly cuz...I'm still undecided between certain major plot points oof. And I don't want to end up changing my mind halfway either hah @_@


	19. Chapter 19

“Bluebell” turns out to be code for blackmailing Dr. Stapleton, John discovers.

 

Sherlock corners her in the carpark on her way in and John realizes Sherlock’s had this all planned, every step of the way since morning, and likely more.

 

“Dr. Stapleton, how would little Kirsty feel if she found out you’d murdered her bunny?” he asks by the way of greeting.

 

She stares, trapped.

 

“What is it that you want?” she finally asks.

 

“To use your microscope,” Sherlock says innocently. John can’t help but suspect now that there’s more.

 

.

 

Or perhaps not, as the visit to her lab is turning out to be quite uneventful. Sherlock sits at the microscope, silent, and the two of them sort of watch him from the end of the table.

 

It occurs to John to ask, “um. What exactly are you looking at? For?”

 

The response is a lot more - heated - than they might’ve expected.

 

“It’s not there!” Sherlock stands from his seat, giving the microscope a murderous look. John has half a mind to hold him back.

 

“Nothing there. It doesn’t make any sense!” 

 

It’s times like these that Sherlock takes up all the space in a room, impossible to ignore.  

 

“The drug?” John asks, still trying to follow.

 

“I took it from Henry’s kitchen - his sugar. And it’s perfectly  _ ordinary.” _

 

“Maybe it’s not a drug?” Stapleton says.

 

Sherlock sits, pressing his fingers to his temples, not even looking at her.

 

“No, it has to be a drug. But how did it get into our systems?  _ How?” _

 

After which he sits, unmoving for a moment. 

 

Then he sort of starts to move his hands, and-

 

“What is he doing?”

 

_ “OUT.” _

 

John leads Stapleton away from the thrumming detective, and tries to explain the ancient memory technique.

 

“He’s in his mind palace,” he says, rote and weary.

 

“His what?”

 

“It’s um.” He waves his hands around a bit. “Before there was writing, people who gave great speeches and lectures and scholars and things, they’d have to remember everything. So there’s technique where you take a place, and store everything there, and the theory is all the memories are thus retrieval, you just have to find your way back.”

 

“Ah.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“And he’s chosen a palace?”

 

John snorts. “Yeah. Tells you all you need to know about him, really.”

 

.

 

They come back after a leisurely chat in the cafeteria and find Sherlock on Stapleton’s computer.

 

“You don’t have the access code!” she says.

 

“I deduced it,” he replies, scrolling through the files. “Not yours, though, you don’t have enough  _ clearance.” _

 

They peer over his shoulder to read: Project HOUND.

 

“So it  _ was  _ an experiment,” John says, the same time Stapleton sucks in a breath.

 

“My God,” she says quietly.

 

He soon sees why too: extreme suggestibility, fear and stimulus, conditioned terror, aerosol dispersal, paranoia, severe frontal lobe damage, blood-brain, gross cranial trauma, dangerous acceleration, multiple homicide.

 

“A closed CIA project,” John says. 

 

Sherlock taps on the screen - it’s a group photo of the research team who’d worked on it, the five leaders in the center. Leonard Hansen, Jack O’Mara, Mary Uslowski, Rick Nader, Elaine Dyson - John sees Sherlock was right, it was an acronym after all,  of their names. 

 

“Project HOUND: a new deliriant drug which rendered its users incredibly suggestible. They wanted to use it as an antipersonnel weapon to totally disorientate the enemy using fear and stimulus; but they shut it down and hid it away in 1986,” Sherlock says.

 

“Because of what it did to the subjects,” Stapleton says.

 

“And what they did to others,” Sherlock agrees, nodding. “Prolonged exposure drove them insane - made them almost uncontrollably aggressive.”

 

“So someone’s been doing it again, carrying on the experiments?” John asks.

 

“Look closer,” Sherlock says.

 

Stapleton and John both look at the photo again, not getting it.

 

“Those names mean anything to you?” he asks.

 

“No, not a thing,” she says. 

 

Sherlock zooms in on one of the scientists in the back row, possibly just a junior assistant at the time.

 

“Oh my God - that’s Bob Frankland,” Stapleton says with a gasp. “But Bob doesn’t even work on - this was chemical warfare!”

 

“And he’s been trying to refine it, perhaps, these past twenty years,” Sherlock says, drumming his fingers on the desk. “So he’s, what, testing on Henry? An accident? No, no, from what he’s told, us, this was deliberate, coldly calculated.”

 

“What he told us?” John says. He interviewed the man himself. “He didn’t tell us anything.

 

Sherlock sighs, almost fondly, but mostly amused.

 

“Call Henry,” Sherlock says. John gives him a flat look, but does so anyway. It rings, and rings, and John’s about to hang up, thinking it won’t go through, but then it does.

 

“Hello, Henry?”

 

All he hears is some labored breathing - then the sound of leaves crunching.

 

“Henry, are you there?”

 

Then there is a gunshot.

 

.

 

John is up and running before he even knows why, keeping pace with Sherlock as he dashes off. 

 

He doesn’t ask where they’re going either - toward Henry, no doubt, and where Henry was, well, the mad genius must have already deduced  _ that. _

 

“So how do you know where Henry is?” John asks.

 

“Do you know who Hugo Seldon is, John?” Sherlock asks instead of answering. And of course John doesn’t; Sherlock barely waits for him to answer before moving on to answer himself.

 

“He died here in Dartmoor a little over 20 years ago, I discovered it while looking back in the newspapers, about Henry’s father’s own death,” Sherlock says. 

 

John sees it now, the cloud of fog descending into the moors, where they are heading. 

 

“It was ruled an accident, completely unrelated to Baskerville, of course. An unfortunate case of drunk out on the road in the dark. Except there was blood under his nails, and not an assailant’s. Because there wasn’t one - it was his own blood. Now why would he have that?”

 

“I dismissed it at first; the tractor that rolled into his smashed in his face. But now it’s clear - he’d clawed himself bloody.”

 

John shoots Sherlock a look.

 

“Yes, John, Frankland had been experimenting, and in a small town like this it made more sense to try it out on the tourists, who none of the townspeople might miss.”

 

John stops in his tracks; they’re near the edge of the basin, and can make out a fallen torch down in the moors.

 

“And Henry’s father found out,” John concludes.

 

“Yes. He must’ve confronted Bob Frankland, his old friend. It didn’t go well. Likely they grappled, and then he died. Poor Henry witness- Henry!”

 

Sherlock runs towards one of the figures and John once again follows.

 

Henry stumbles, having grappled with another figure who Sherlock now realizes is Frankland.

 

“Dr. Frankland?!” he hears John say. 

 

“I might’ve miscalculated,” Sherlock mutters, jumping into the fray. 

 

The gun has dropped, and the two of them have been engaged in a clumsy battle. Sherlock glances at Henry’s tear-streaked face, contorted with pain.

 

“Do you see it? Do you see it?” he yells.

 

“Oh God,” Frankland says. “Mr. Holmes, he’s just tried to kill himself. He needs help.”

 

John, ever reliable, picks up the gun. 

 

“Henry came to see me, and wanted to come out here one last time. I agreed, to prove there’s nothing. I should have told him no! I didn’t realize he had a gun, he- he’s not well.”

 

Frankland scrambles backwards, putting distance between himself and Henry.

 

“Oh Jesus,” Henry chants, sobbing not. “I don’t know. I don’t know anymore.”

 

“Liberty, In. Indiana, wasn’t it?” Sherlock says, eyes on Frankland.

 

Frankland goes stock still with fear, but Henry is listening.

 

“They were letters on a T-shirt,” Sherlock continues, still supporting Henry to stand. “Beneath the letters spelling out HOUND. Do you remember, Henry? The image of a wolf on the T-shirt, and the letters.  _ That  _ is what you saw that night.”

 

“Remember Henry, remember,” Sherlock urges, and John can see the light of clarity come back into his eyes.

 

“It wasn’t a hound at all  _ but a man.” _

 

Henry looks up, slowly.

 

“No,” he says, disbelieving. But the horror on Frankland’s face is telling. “It’s just… you bastard!”

 

He lunges at Frankland and nearly gets there too. But Frankland turns and runs, sprinting for his life.

 

“Twenty years! Twenty years of my life making no sense! Why didn’t you just kill me?!”

 

“Because dead men get listened to,” Sherlock explains. “He needed to do more than kill you. He had to discredit every word you ever said about your father, and he had the means right at his feet – a chemical minefield; pressure pads in the ground dosing you up every time that you came back here.”

 

Sherlock starts toward them, then John sees him stop, eyes unfocused and faraway.

 

“Sherlock?”

 

“No,” he says, to himself, and who knows what he’s seeing. 

 

Then it dawns on John: the fog. Aerosol dispersal - the drug was in the fog.

 

“Sherlock! We have to go now!” he says, covering his mouth and nose with his shirt, what little good that did him. “Sherlock the drug is in the fog!”

 

He reaches for his friend, who shudders and pulls himself together. The three make it out of the chemical minefield before Henry practically faints.

 

“He’s been dosed over and over over the years,” Sherlock says. Then he laughs. “Murder weapon and scene of the crime all at once - brilliant!”

 

John gives him a  _ look _ .

 

Then he remembers, “What about Frankland?”

 

“I had Stapleton send the police to his place while we came here - he should be intercepted in time.”

 

“Right,” John, impressed despite himself. 

 

They both look down at Henry, who’s sort of collapsed between them.

 

“Will he be alright?”

 

“Eventually, he should,” Sherlock says. “He was only lightly dosed, and only recently has it been frequent. He has his memories back - but now he will have to deal with them.”

 

“Price of truth, is it?”

 

“Or freedom,” Sherlock says.


	20. Chapter 20

“Newborns are so much easier with a sibling,” Mummy says with a yawn.

 

Sherlock stares with both morbid fascination and horror at the squishy pink bundle in his arms that Mummy’s pawned off on him.

 

“Yeugh,” Sherlock says. Mycroft’s eyes don’t quite focus and he doesn’t seem interested in anything at all. Sherlock wonders if, at this size, Mycroft is even capable of thought.

 

It’s good to talk to babies, Mummy tells him, and that’s why Sherlock is so clever, because she read him her dissertation in her belly and they discussed physics while she changed his nappies and by the time Sherlock could sound off syllables in response they’d moved on to Aristotle. 

 

Sherlock suspects all that’s just an excuse to nap. 

 

“I’ll just be twenty minutes, William,” she says.

 

“It’s  _ Sherlock.” _

 

Mycroft swats him; pure accident, of course, as he has no real control over his limbs yet.

 

Sherlock magnanimously deigns to tell Mycroft all about his latest experiment anyway.

 

.

 

Mycroft is some months old when he manages what basically amounts to, to Sherlock’s ears, babababababa with the occasional surprise sound thrown in. But what he lacks in enunciation and vocabulary he makes up with in  _ feeling. _

 

This child has not even lived a full year, and he is already argumentative at times when he doesn’t get his way.

 

“These are rocks, Mycroft,” Sherlock says, watching his brother curiously. It’s true, he is trying to match up his specimens to his geology book to determine the ancient origins of his own backyard, but he is covertly running a second experiment to determine whether his tiny brother is capable of comprehension, or merely a noisy guinea pig.

 

Mycroft burbles and coos.

 

“Yes, they’re make for a rather nice sample, don’t they?” Sherlock says.

 

This elicits a short exclamation from Mycroft, as well as a flappy arm in the general direction of the rocks. 

 

“And what I am doing now, see with this magnifying glass, is to study the rocks more closely, so as to match them to the ones in this book, see?”

 

Mycroft voices a demand, hand outstretched.

 

Sherlock furrows his brows.

 

“No, this is mine. And anyway you wouldn’t know what to do with it.”

 

Mycroft babbles in annoyance, and takes a small breath before launching into what seems to be a defense of his position.

 

“You don’t even know what you’re asking for, don’t be silly,” Sherlock says.

 

Mycroft sounds deeply offended. 

 

Skeptical, Sherlock places the magnifying glass down, and slides it over to Mycroft.

 

This elicits a tiny sound of awe, and then Mycroft coos as he drools all over it.

 

“You are the worst baby, you know that? You get drool over  _ everything,” _ Sherlock says, snatching it back. Mycroft is mournful at this, as gleaned by the sad noises he makes and the drool covered fingers that reach out to try to stay Sherlock’s hand.

 

.

 

Sherlock deeply regrets talking to Mycroft at all those two years when, at age three, the tiny ball of madness runs into Sherlock’s room at barely 5 in the morning, and jumps on his bed.

 

“SHERLOCK!!” Mycroft whispers in the world’s loudest whisper. “SHERLOCK IT IS MORNING NOW, SEE! THAT MEANS IT IS SATURDAY, AND YOU PROMISED SATURDAY WE COULD PLAY!”

 

Sherlock moans, and covers his face with a pillow, turning over on his side. This does nothing to deter Mycroft’s excitement, and a small foot connects with Sherlock’s ribcage a moment later.

 

_ “OW.” _

 

“SHERLOCK! SHERLOCK DO YOU NEED HELP GETTING UP! SHERLOCK DO YOU NEED HELP I CAN PUT TOOTHPASTE ON ON A BRUSH ALL BY MYSELF NOW I CAN HELP YOU. SHERLOCK WILL YOU WEAR THE RED JUMPER BECAUSE I HAVE ONE TOO I PICKED IT MYSELF TODAY SHERLOCK. SHERLOCK.”

 

Sherlock’s just been stepped on about ten times and kind of wants to cry.


	21. Chapter 21

Mycroft walks through the gallery, rolling his eyes as he glances a security camera that’s followed him, resisting the urge to make a face. He knows Moriarty is on the other end of the transmissions, watching as he takes a stroll through the gallery with his guards.

 

Their meetings are still sporadic and clandestine, but Mycroft can’t say it hasn’t been fun. Someone to talk to besides government workers he’s pushing around.

 

Mycroft takes another look at the watercolor - Turner’s Reichenbach Falls. In two weeks time, it’ll disappear into someone’s basement, and then who knows how long before it would resurface?

 

Mycroft and Moriarty have got a bet on how long it might Sherlock to solve _that._

 

.

 

Jim is so good at sneaking into hotel suites that Mycroft suspects he has a good portion of hospitality staff on his payroll. He doesn’t ask.

 

They’re watching a movie on the sofa - or, well, Mycroft is watching, and Jim is working, flipping through some files with a dumb frowny expression on his face.

 

Mycroft cranes his head to get a better look, and Jim tilts it toward him.

 

“Peter Ricoletti,” Jim explains. “He’s looking for a way into the country.”

 

Mycroft makes a face at him.

 

“He’s on _Interpol’s Most Wanted,”_ Mycroft says. “No, if you send him here, they’ll want my help, and Interpol is the _worst,_ they’ve got the _most_ antiquated protocols.”

 

“Hmmmmmm,” Jim says, a long, considering exhale. “I don’t see why we couldn’t do both.”

 

Mycroft snorts. “Isn’t that bad for business?”

 

“Oh you have no idea the extent of my business.”

 

Mycroft ignores him and takes the files out of his hands.

 

“What else have you got?”

 

“Hm?”

 

“Oh don’t pretend you’re not being sneaky and bringing me cases you’ve no inspiration for yourself,” Mycroft says, looking them over.

 

“No inspiration-!” Jim sputters.

 

“It’s because you’re a workaholic, and that’s sure to make even the most heinous crimes seem banal after so _many_ of them,” Mycroft says.

 

He picks up one case and makes a face at Jim. “Bank heist? Really?” he says. “The client is _not_ always right, no matter what they say. Make it embezzlement instead.”

 

Jim takes the file, frowny face still partially intact.

 

“And who is going to be doing the embezzling for this Mr. Ludlow?”

 

Mycroft shrugs, yawning a bit. “Pick someone. His boss, preferably,” he says, leaning over to peek at the forms again. “There - look into him, he’s a big enough fish that there’ll be some fun publicity to go along with everything.”

 

“Fun publicity.”

 

“Of course. Bankers aren’t exactly the nation’s darlings, are they? Oh but maybe he would garner more sympathy if he was, say, abducted.”

 

“Abducted?” Jim laughs. “And here we started with a bank heist.”

 

“Oh, yes by Ricoletti - see, two birds with one stone. We get him in, we get him arrested again, the banker he kidnaps drums up so much noise no one notices the missing million until it’s too late. And then even if the bank did realize, they’d realize it was an inside job and want to prevent the news from going public,” Mycroft says, dropping the files back in Jim’s lap and picking up the room service menu instead.

 

“Oh, I see, so you just come up with all these wild theories, but I’m the one who has to do all the work?” Jim says with a laugh.

 

“Excuse me, I’ve just done all the heavy lifting. My tempered, detached perspective is why my planning is so effective,” Mycroft says, elbowing him when the laughter doesn’t stop.

 

“Please. When I first met you, you’d just sent your beloved brother into the arms of a criminal madman just to avoid doing the running around for a boring case. Tempered? You’re a loose cannon.”

 

.

 

“Oh, have them go through this particular carpark,” Mycroft says, pointing on a map Jim has spread out over the dining table.

 

“Why? It doesn’t change the distance they’d have to move the hostages.”

 

“Yes, but, Sherlock is full of rock and dirt trivia, and he will know exactly where they’ve come through just by having seen the very particular gravel left behind on the tires, and likely no one else will believe him, which is sure to get him up in arms,” Mycroft says seriously.

 

“Is that what having a sibling is like?”

 

.

 

“You’ve been reading the papers for nearly an hour now.”

 

“Are you jealous?” Mycroft asks without looking up, still smiling at the funny pictures of Sherlock in the newspapers. The press seem to love him, which must annoy Sherlock to no end, to Mycroft’s delight.

 

Sherlock has catapulted to fame, from reports of the “amateur sleuth” recovering stolen, priceless works of art, to now the “nation’s favorite detective.” Though Mycroft thinks Lestrade could give Sherlock a run for Most Photogenic. Not that _anybody_ could pull off that silly hat.

 

“That you’re paying more attention to the error-riddled tabloids than me? Yes.”

 

Jim flicks a piece of popcorn at Mycroft, hitting him square in the forehead.

 

“Ow.”

 

Mycroft finally looks up at Jim, who has his arms on the table and is leaning forward to study him.

 

“What?” Mycroft asks, defensive.

 

“Is that why you won’t leave?” Jim asks.

 

Mycroft just continues making a face at him.

 

“Because of your relationship with your brother,” Jim elaborates. His unsuccessful attempts at convincing Mycroft to devise an escape plan, even hypothetically, is the primary wedge in the relationship. Far bigger than the fact that he is single-handedly responsible for a great portion of criminal activity that beguiles the authorities, and Mycroft thinks perhaps one day he should examine that.

 

“It’s.” It’s not something he likes to think about. Mycroft ducks his head. “One reason, yeah. But mostly, I just don’t think I’d enjoy being on the run very much. It’s not like I _like_ having to hide.”

 

Jim’s laser-focused observation of him doesn’t change, so he pushes the papers aside, and tries to change the subject.

 

“Well what about _you?_ You can’t seriously enjoy having to do all your work in secret,” Mycroft says.

 

“Oh on the contrary, I value my anonymity. Unlike you, I get to come and go as I please.”

 

“And here you are giving me reams of evidence that could put you away.” Mycroft gives him a flat look.

 

“Yes, a worthwhile risk.” Jim gives him a crooked smile. “I’m glad to have stuck around to meet you, you know.”

 

Mycroft just pats him on the back of his hand absent-mindedly, as if this little heart-to-heart was simply obvious.

 

“Of course you are.”


	22. Chapter 22

“Sir, there’s been a break in.”

 

Lestrade has just finally gotten a moment off his feet, and he’s taken advantage of it too - feet on the desk, coffee and donut in hand. It’s been a real  _ week. _

 

“Not our division,” he tells Sergeant Donovan.

 

She gives him a look that means this can’t bode well for any of them.

 

“You’ll want it,” she says. 

 

.

 

“Hacked into the Tower of bloody  _ London _ security? How?” Lestrade asks. She explains on the way but it doesn’t quite add up then either, and Donovan is interrupted by another call.

 

“Tell them we’re already on our way,” Lestrade says.

 

“There’s been another one; another break in,” she says. Then she shoots him an alarmed look. “Bank of England!”

 

.

 

Sherlock is plucking away at his violin, standing by the window as his phone buzzes away.

 

Neither he nor John, reading his paper in his chair, pay the device much attention.

 

“Confirmed bachelor! What is that supposed to mean?” he reads aloud.

 

“Don’t you think it’s odd,” Sherlock says slowly, narrowing his eyes on some point out the window.

 

“Yes! Why would they write that!”

 

“How long has it been since Mycroft last stopped by to visit?” Sherlock continues, ignoring John’s offense at the tabloids.

 

“Um.” John blinks, thinking back. “January, February, then there was the - he said he’d be overseas on a project didn’t he? So, couple of weeks ago. He gave you a big hug, remember?”

 

Sherlock shudders, clearly remembering. 

 

“He’d be back by now, but we haven’t seen him,” Sherlock says.

 

“Oh, do you mean you miss him?” John asks with a grin, ready to tease.

 

“No, I mean Mycroft must be busy  _ scheming.” _

 

The phone buzzes again.

 

“Are you going to get that?” John asks.

 

“Hm,” Sherlock says, noncommittal. John’s about to stand and check it himself, but Sherlock goes.

 

He watches his friend frown, an unusual response given the next sentence out of his mouth.

 

“It’s Lestrade.”

 

.

 

“Confirmed reports of Moriarty being responsible for a spectacular three-in-one break-in, and he is in custody. An expedited trial,” Sherlock explains, getting into the cab.

 

“Doesn’t this all seem rather suspicious to you?” Sherlock asks John. “They’d covered it up, and now supposedly tapes have surfaced, and he’s in custody all at the same time.”

 

“He got caught on purpose.”

 

“Yes. This is part of the game.” John doesn’t seem to catch onto another point worrying Sherlock: For such a high profile case concerning the crown, wasn’t there someone  _ missing? _

 

John glances over at Sherlock, more concerned than he wants to be, for another reason entirely. 

 

“Look, Sherlock, the thing with the press - they’ve been circling like sharks for weeks, months. And now this trial? It’s a circus. Just. Try to keep it short, direct, alright?”

 

“Try not to be too clever?” Sherlock guesses, looking out the other window. He doesn’t let bitterness cloud his tone but he no doubt feels it.

 

“Just try not to be-”

 

“Me?”

 

John purses his lips, but doesn’t say anything more.

 

Their vehicle slows to a crawl not a few minutes later - traffic is a nightmare.

 

“God,” Sherlock mutters. “Hope Mycroft hasn’t started another war.”

 

“Do you think he’ll be there?” John asks.

 

“I doubt he’d miss it.”

 

.

 

There is a woman in the men’s room.

 

Sherlock washes his hands, before straightening to raise an eyebrow at the offending intruder through the mirror.

 

“You’re him,” she says in an awed breathless manner. She’s wearing one of those stupid hats, and an I Heart Sherlock pin, good God.

 

“Wrong toilet,” he says curtly.

 

“I’m a  _ big _ fan,” she says, sidling up to him.

 

“I read your cases; follow them all,” she says. Then she unzips her jacket. “Sign my shirt, would you?”

 

There’s not much of a shirt there, but he does get an eyeful of cleavage.

 

Sherlock takes a closer look - the pressure marks, ink, oh her pocket.

 

“There are two types of fans,” Sherlock says; this seems to pique her interest.

 

“Oh?”

 

“Catch me before I kill again,” he says, fond thoughts of the testimony he was going to give in mind, and “Type B: Your bedroom’s just a taxi ride away.”

 

The woman grins.

 

“Guess which one I am,” she says, inviting.

 

“Neither,” Sherlock says curtly, wiping his hands dry and heading for the door. She follows on his heels, and he spins around right before the door and grabs her arm, holding it up.

 

“No, you’re not a fan at all. Those marks on your forearm: edge of a desk. You’ve been typing in a hurry, probably. Pressure on; facing a deadline,” he says. 

 

She pulls back her arm, but he continues. 

 

“And there’s a smudge of ink on your wrist; and a bulge in your left jacket pocket.”

 

Sherlock plucks the little recorder out of her pocket, looking it over - it’s clearly still recording.

 

“Bit of a giveaway,” she says.

 

“Well the smudge is deliberate - to see if I’m as good as they say I am,” he says. Then picks up her wrist again, takes a whiff.

 

“Hmm, oil-based used in newspaper print, but drawn on with an index finger; your finger. Journalist, but you’re unlikely to get your hands dirty at the press. You put that there to test me,” he says. 

 

“Wow, I’m liking you!”

 

“You mean for a  _ story,” _ he says in clipped tones and with a sigh. 

 

“Kitty Riley,” she says. “Nice to meet you.”

 

“I’ll save you the time of asking: No, I won’t give you an interview,” Sherlock says. “I don’t give  _ any _ interviews, and certainly not to vultures like yourself.”

 

Then he heads out the door. 

 

.

 

The encounter has Sherlock running just late enough to the courtroom to annoy the judge into giving him a ‘glad you could join us’ look.

 

There is already an attorney there making excuses for him and how he should be here any minute when Sherlock steps onto the floor and makes his own announcement.

 

“Yes, I’m here. Sherlock Holmes to testify,” he says, marching toward the witness stand. He’s about to get in the box himself when he finally turns around and gets a good look at those present - packed with press, as expected.

 

But the man on trial is most definitely not Moriarty.

 

It’s Mycroft Holmes, his own brother, who stares out at the legal proceedings with a vaguely bored expression. He clearly hasn’t said a single word yet (which in itself is unusual, Sherlock can’t help but add to himself), and must not plan to.  

 

Sherlock expects his heart stops for a good minute, before he finally clears his throat.

 

“Where is Moriarty?” he asks. 

 

“Mr. Holmes, may I kindly ask you not to disrupt legal proceedings and turn them into your personal investigations?” the weary judge asks. They’ve been through this song and dance more than once and Sherlock is not well liked for the way he treats the process, no matter how many cases he’s helped close.

 

“Where is Moriarty?” he asks again. “The man on trial-”

 

The prosecuting barrister stops him with a condescending fake laugh.

 

“I thought you were supposed to be observant, Mr. Holmes.”

 

Sherlock purses his lips, willing himself to think,  _ think. _

 

He looks around this room - this is no place to be risking Mycroft’s identity - and then leaves the way he came.


	23. Chapter 23

“Well at least we know where Mycroft is,” John says, jogging a bit to catch up with Sherlock. Story of his life, really.

 

Sherlock is grateful John is with him, he really is, as in his shock at seeing his brother on trial he had left without thought for the fact that John must have been in the courtroom, in the public area, the entire time as well.

 

“You didn’t say anything, did you?” Sherlock asks hastily.

 

“No,” John says, confused. “Why didn’t _you?”_

 

Sherlock doesn’t answer, instead showing his credentials as they rush through security and into a government building.

 

“And what are we doing _here_ if Mycroft is still _there?”_

 

Security is not happy with him as he barges through the set of heavy oak doors. Neither is Lady Smallwood, who stands and looks at him imperiously as he crowds into her office.

 

“What the _hell_ have you done with my brother?” he asks, thunderous.

 

It doesn’t rattle Smallwood one bit.

 

“Take a seat,” she demands, voice firm.

 

Sherlock stays standing, stalking closer to her desk.

 

“If you’re using him as a pawn in one of your plots-”

 

“Mycroft Holmes has been missing for a week,” she hisses.

 

Sherlock takes a step back at that.

 

Then he does take a seat.

 

“Explain,” he says, clearly distracted. “We know where he is _now,_ why haven’t your people gone to pick him up yet?”

 

“Oh you think we haven’t tried?” she snaps at him. “Maybe you aren’t so observant after all, if you haven’t noticed the snipers on every roof following his movements.”

 

“A week,” Sherlock blurts out, belatedly understanding. “Just before all the break-ins.”

 

“Yes,” she says. She sighs, exhausted, as she takes a seat as well.

 

“Why didn’t I hear about this?” Sherlock demands.

 

“No footage. No evidence of his involvement at all. We were sure he was-”

 

“-helping the Germans with a trade deal, yes I remember getting an email. But he wasn’t there at all.”

 

They sit in deafening silence for a moment. Logically, it adds up. But this was _Mycroft_.

 

John looks between the two of them, uncertain what exactly he’s missed.

 

“So. What. Mycroft’s turned?” he asks.

 

“He had help,” Sherlock says tonelessly.

 

Smallwood scoffs.

 

“Don’t say that like he wouldn’t have been able to do ten times worse alone. As if he _hasn’t_.”

 

“Maybe if you hadn’t treated him like a death-row _prisoner_ all these years,” Sherlock shoots back, “he’d never have a reason to.”

 

“Prisoner,” John says, trying to calm Sherlock down, “Come on, Sherlock, he was, I mean even I could tell he was well-compensated, and sure maybe his whole life was the job, but so is yours.”

 

The silence that comes after is even worse - heavy with judgement and shameful secrets.

 

Smallwood raises an eyebrow, long past the point of being bullied into feeling sorry for anything she’s done.

 

“The only reason young Mycroft Holmes is not rotting in a maximum security prison cell is because we’ve decided to extend him this leniency so that he might make amends with Queen and Country,” she says drily.

 

“You mean so you can continue to exploit him,” Sherlock all but growls.

 

“If you are not going to be of any help in locating your brother, Mr. Holmes, then you can leave,” Smallwood says, having had enough.

 

.

 

Sherlock hasn’t said a word since Smallwood so effectively shut him up; not on the long ride home, nor the hour he’s spent brooding in his armchair, unmoved since they came back.

 

He finally exits the zone, or, well, likely his Mind Palace, as John notices him following him with his eyes as he takes a seat with his laptop himself. Might as well see what they’re saying about the trial - and the star witness storming out. Ouch. This won’t go over well.

 

“Mycroft isn’t Moriarty,” Sherlock says, watching him.

 

“That’s not what I was thinking,” John says. Slowly, he takes a seat anyway, sensing there was more to it that Sherlock needed to share, but perhaps did not want to.

 

“You’re thinking, why, exactly then, _was_ Mycroft working for the government.”

 

Actually, yes.

 

“The official story is he was recruited by MI6 after a cybersecurity misstep at the age of 17.”

 

“So you’ve said, yes. But if that’s not what…”

 

“He was 15, John, and he’d brought down the entirety of the government’s cyber defense systems.”

 

John has to replay that through his mind a couple of times.

 

“I’m sorry, he-”

 

“For 12 minutes, the entirety of the nation was defenseless,” Sherlock says, and he can still picture Smallwood giving the report, and the threats afterwards. “You can’t imagine the nightmare it was to repair afterwards. The damage was catastrophic - or so I’m told.”

 

“And he’d done it all on less than a bet - just some friendly ribbing between hackers on a message board, on the dark web. Prison was an option, yes, but I’m sure they more likely wanted to just make him - disappear instead.”

 

He’s quiet for a moment, and it takes John several more to realize why: Guilt.

 

“He was 15, John, and unaware what it had meant, that he’d done what he had,” Sherlock says.

 

He remembers bringing a desktop computer into the house when Mycroft was 10, and setting it onto a table in the library, showing Mycroft how to use it, how he could send him emails while he was at university and how the child had pouted and teared up - likely on command - every time he remembered Sherlock was going to be gone months out of the year.

 

“He was terrified, and I wasn’t there,” Sherlock finally says, with great difficulty.

 

He takes a heaving breath.

 

“They’d tracked him down, of course, and thankfully it was Home Office and not some rival hacker with ties to organized crime that got there,” Sherlock continues. “When they arrived - Mycroft was in no way equipped to handle it, and our parents - of course they had no idea what was going on.”

 

John mentally does the math.

 

“You would have been in university.”

 

“I was in a drug den,” Sherlock corrects. “Passed out. Unreachable. I didn’t know until a week later.”

 

John doesn’t know how to respond to that - he knew Sherlock had used, but. Well. At least now he knew what accounted for his repulsion at the idea despite so often wanting to succumb.

 

Sherlock finally meets John’s eyes, but there’s something closed off about them.

 

“I checked myself into rehab after that,” Sherlock says. “And thus was gone nearly another year.”

 

“By the time I came back, Mycroft had seemed to come to terms with his situation. Outwardly presenting as if he’d made the best of it, as if it had been a choice and everything had fallen into place. Downplayed the extent of his deal to our parents, visits during the holidays, and now no one’s complaining.”

 

“I didn’t even know what to say,” Sherlock finishes in a quietly, voicing the crux of his guilt. “He’s just a _child.”_

 

.

 

His calls, of course, go unanswered. All of Sherlock’s network is on the case, but it’s as if Mycroft’s disappeared off the face of the earth.

 

The papers are rife with news of how “Moriarty” walked free, despite clearly having committed the crimes - at least in robbing the Tower of London.

 

Sherlock’s watched the tape hours on loop, still looking for a tell of something he missed. But each time, all he sees is a tourist getting past a guard, and then Mycroft Holmes calmly leveraging a diamond to break the reinforced glass case, before walking out with the crown jewels.

 

From what he’s read and seen of the jury, it sounds like blackmail was involved.

 

Blackmail doesn’t sound like Mycroft.

 

Smallwood’s team traces Mycroft’s phone - destroyed now - into a post box that does not belong to him, and then the trail goes cold.

 

Their next meeting is nowhere near as pleasant as the first.

 

“You’d better hope you find your brother before we do,” Smallwood tells Sherlock gravely. “Because he is far too knowledgeable an asset for us to have turned.”

 

Sherlock doesn’t let that visibly shake him, but internally, he’s nearly murderous himself.

 

“You do understand you’ve just admitted intent to kill, correct?” he asks her with false airiness.

 

“Can’t kill someone who doesn’t exist, Mr. Holmes,” Smallwood replies without an ounce of remorse.


	24. Chapter 24

John is thinking Sherlock is about to work himself to death looking into the disappearance of his brother when salvation arrives in the form of Detective Inspector Lestrade.

 

“Kidnapping?” John asks.

 

“Rufus Bruhl, the ambassador to the United States,” Lestrade answers. He and Donovan have arrived with a case, and Sherlock is sitting still enough that John wonders if a case - a regular case, exciting as it might be - might in comparison to the Mycroft Case be somewhat of a break for him.

 

“He’s in Washington, isn’t he?” John asks; he remembers reading about this.

 

“Not him,” Lestrade says, beckoning Donovan over. She sets a file on the coffee table and flips it open - photographs of two young children.

 

“Max, 7, and Claudette, 9,” Donovan says. 

 

“They’re at St. Aldate’s,” Lestrade adds. “Posh boarding place down in Surrey.”

 

“The school broke up, and all the boarders went home - except just a few, including the Bruhls. But they’ve vanished,” Donovan says.

 

“And the ambassador has asked for you personally,” Lestrade adds.

 

“The Reichenbach Hero,” Donovan adds sarcastically. 

 

It’s telling that Sherlock doesn’t even spare her a second glance. Normally, he would’ve met her tit for tat and everyone in the room knows it. They watch with some surprise as he dons his coat and starts out the door.

 

“Well?” he asks, well into the stairwell.

 

They follow.

 

.

 

The school visit does  _ not _ go as well as John’d hoped. 

 

Sherlock nearly immediately terrorizes one of the House Mistresses, apparently to get a quick answer out of her, and then proceeded to rifle through the children’s things in a cold and efficient manner, and then antagonizing all of the NSY staff in short order.

 

In any case, Sherlock manages to find a lead - a rather literal one.

 

“The boy was made to walk ahead of them,” Sherlock says, gesturing along the illuminated footprints they find. “On his toes, indicates anxiety - gun held to his head. Then the girl was pulled beside him, dragged sideways.”

 

Sherlock slowly walks along the footprints, as Anderson shines a UV light. 

 

“He had his left arm cradled about her neck,” Sherlock murmurs.

 

“That’s it,” Anderson says, finding nothing more underneath the light. “That’s the end of it. We don’t know  _ where _ they went from there. Tells us nothing after all.”

 

“Nothing,” Sherlock says. “Except his shoe size, height, gait, and walking pace.”

 

He sweeps the room, gathering evidence all over again.

 

.

 

They’re on their way to the lab in silence, when John tries for conversation. Sherlock did always like to hold his grand reveal til the end, but he was always one to explain his deductions readily.

 

“But how did he get past the CCTV?” John asks, having not been able to puzzle it out. “If all the doors were locked…”

 

“This has to be Moriarty,” Sherlock says instead of explaining.

 

“The kidnapping?”

 

“Mycroft. All of it. I don’t know what he wants with my brother, but he should be so lucky to find himself whole enough to even receive a kidnappings charge by the time I’m done with him,” Sherlock vows.

 

John can only stare.

 

.

 

Sherlock sits in front of the microscope, examining the oil sample he’d taken from the footprints.

 

“All chemical traces on his shoe have been preserved. The sole of the shoe is like a passport - if we’re lucky we can see everything that he’s been up to,” Sherlock says. 

 

Molly pulls on some latex gloves and drips some liquid into one of the dishes, applying a Litmus strip to it.

 

“Alkaline,” she says.

 

“Thank you, John,” Sherlock replies without looking up.

 

“Molly,” she corrects.

 

“Yes.”

 

Sherlock switches out the dish under the lens, and makes a few notes.

 

Molly glances at him, then looks away. She sneaks several more glances before finally working up the courage to say,

 

“You’re a bit like my mum. No, sorry, that came out-”

 

“Molly  _ please _ don’t feel the need to make conversation. It’s really not your area.”

 

That sets her back a bit, and she cringes, but continues anyway.

 

“When my dad died...she was sad and angry, that he’d died, that she’d been left alone. But what she really was was...scared. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you scared,” Molly says, quietly. Quiet enough that John, across the room, doesn’t hear her.

 

Sherlock slowly looks up, glancing over at John, before looking straight at Molly.

 

“I- I just mean.” Molly flounders. “But what do I know, right? I don’t count.”

 

“What could I possibly be afraid of?” Sherlock asks, but not unkindly. 

 

She starts over. “No, what I’m trying to say is that. If there’s anything I can do, anything you need, anything at all, you can have me. I mean.” She shakes her head. “It’s fine.

 

Molly turns away, but Sherlock keeps his eyes on her.

 

“What could I need from you?” he asks.

 

“Nothing.” She turns back to glance at him, and shrugs. “You could probably say thank you, actually.”

 

Molly doesn’t look away this time. After a moment, hesitantly, Sherlock says, “Thank you.”

 

She nods, then leaves, pulling off her gloves.

 

A few moments later, Sherlock looks up from the microscope, declaring, “Addlestone!”

 

.

 

A tall man with military bearing stops Sherlock outside Scotland Yard, intent on getting in his way but hesitant to make physical contact.

 

Sherlock looks him up and down: An assassin.

 

“Phone call for you, Mr. Holmes,” he says. 

 

It’s a burner.

 

Sherlock takes it, watching as the man disappears into the crowd once again.

 

“You’re right thinking Mycroft isn’t Moriarty,” says the voice on the other end of the line. It’s fake, disguised - a cheery toy voice with a slight mechanical grating. 

 

“How  _ dare _ you use his name,” Sherlock hisses, ducking his face to avoid any cameras outside the police building.

 

“But that’s what the world will think,” the toy continues on without responding. “Unless  _ you _ take the fall.”

 

“Sherlock Holmes, the great detective - a fraud? All those cases you solved, all those  _ plots _ of Moriarty’s you foiled - all just playacting. Something you made up!” Toy laughter rings in the background. “The clock is ticking.”

 

“Would you do that for your brother? Take the fall to clear his name?”

 

The line cuts dead before Sherlock can say anything.

 

.

 

A squad of police cars arrive at Addlestone, an industrial stretch along the river, just a short jog from the park. 

 

“How could you tell from just the gravel?” John asks.

 

“The mixture of rock was very specific; the rock, plus the brick dust mixed in, and quite old judging by the type. Typically you’ll find a cheaper, part-synthetic blend for anything laid in the last four decades,” Sherlock explains. 

 

“Look in there,” Lestrade instructs his team making their way into an old, disused factory. “Quietly.  _ Quietly.” _

 

Sherlock finds a melted candle on a plate, and scattered candy wrapper around it. He touches the wick - still warm.

 

“This was alight moments ago,” he says, then, raising his voice, “They’re still here.”

 

He hears the sound of plastic paper crinkling as someone steps on a wrapper - they’re all over the place.

 

Sherlock looks closer and realizes there’s a scrap of paper amongst the wrappers near the plate. He holds it up to the light.

 

_ I owe you a fall. _

 

Sherlock pockets it without announcement, and then picks up a wrapper to smell. He shines a light on it to get a better look. Then he brings it to his tongue.

 

He makes a face.

 

“Mercury,” Sherlock says.

 

“What?”

 

“The wrappers are painted with mercury - the more they eat, the more poison they ingest. A few won’t kill them, but depending on how long they’ve been here,” Sherlock trails off as the police rush down into the factory.

 

“He didn’t need to be there for the execution,” Sherlock says. “Murder by remote control. He could be a thousand miles away.”

 

But what did this have to do with Mycroft?”

 

“Over here!” 

 

Sherlock follows the sound of Donovan’s voice, and sees her reach down to help two children.

 

“I’ve got you. Don’t worry.”

 

.

 

The boy is unconscious, and the girl is in shock. 

 

They’re taken to the hospital immediately, the parents are alerted, and Sherlock watches as Donovan coaxes words one by one from the young girl by her bedside. 

 

It’s a long while before she emerges.

 

“We need to get a sketch artist down here - she saw enough that I think she can help us put together something useful,” Donovan says.

 

“I want to speak to her,” Sherlock insists.

 

Donovan purses her lips, opting to turn that over to her superior.

 

Lestrade sighs, wary of letting Sherlock interrogate a small child, but then nods, opting to step in the room with him.

 

“I don’t need adult supervision,” Sherlock says.

 

“Yeah, well, sometimes you do,” Lestrade says.

 

.

 

“He was very tall,” Claudette says in a whisper.

 

The sketch artist is on site now, and Sherlock asks his questions, both about the kidnapper and the sequence of events. The sketch artists works from Donovan’s notes as well as the girl’s testimony. 

 

She is in the middle to trying to recount what she heard, as per Sherlock’s instructions, when his eyes land on the nearly finished sketch.

 

There is an unmistakable resemblance to Mycroft.

 

“Sherlock? Do you recognize the man?” Lestrade asks, after seeing him stare at the sketch, paused mid-question, for far too long.

 

Sherlock snatches the sketch up and ushers Lestrade to the door.

 

“I need to speak with you,” he says. “Outside. 

 

.

 

“This man is not Moriarty,” Sherlock says, crowding Lestrade into a corner where cameras can’t capture their faces, for fear of having his lips read.

 

“Now that you mention it, it does look like the bloke who was arrested - walked free, ‘vanished,’ one paper called it,” Lestrade says, studying the image. 

 

“Use your head, Lestrade. No ransom, nothing in place to detain the children and no intention on the kidnapper’s part of coming back - does that sound like a hostage situation to you? No, this was no standard kidnapping, this was a wild goose chase, this was a  _ game _ , Moriarty’s standard M.O., and so is this bit of evidence he’s planted.”

 

Sherlock shoves it inside his coat pocket.

 

“You know, that’s obstruction,” Lestrade says, unsure at Sherlock’s actions, and trying to make light the situation.

 

“That man is Mycroft Holmes, and he is my brother,” Sherlock says through clenched teeth. “I sincerely doubt you’ll have a better chance at finding him.”

 

There’s a tense silence.

 

“Moriarty’s your brother?” 

 

“This is  _ not _ Moriarty. I’ve met Moriarty; he made us jump through all those hoops with the phone, remember? We saw him face to face, both John and I, and  _ Mycroft  _ is decidedly  _ not _ Moriarty.”

 

Lestrade studies Sherlock’s face, still processing.

 

“He doesn’t look much like you,” Lestrade jokes.

 

“Now is  _ not _ the time.”

 

“There is no record of any Mycroft Holmes,” Lestrade protests. 

 

“No, there isn’t, of course there isn’t. He was working for the government, in some capacity.”

 

“Was?”

 

“And this, this case here, this is Moriarty’s game, he’s trying to frame my brother into a- I don’t know yet. But I’m going to find him and you are not going to get in my way,” Sherlock says.

 

Lestrade watches Sherlock storm off, a sense of unease settling.


	25. Chapter 25

The last place Sherlock wanted to see his brother again was on the internet.

 

A clip has leaked - security footage of Mycroft milling around the art gallery in front of the Turner waterfall, cut together with spinning tabloid covers that show the “trial of the century” in which “Moriarty walks free.”

 

“But that must be just a coincidence,” John says, leaning over Sherlock’s shoulder to watch, aghast.

 

“No such thing,” Sherlock says darkly.

 

Before he can trace the origin of this conspiracy clip, footage of Mycroft at the Bank of England surfaces. There’s nothing particularly illegal in anything he’s done on tape, but Mycroft, with his army of guards and his offstandish, arrogant self, has a habit of rubbing people the wrong way.

 

The videos are taken down just as quickly - in the interest of national security, Sherlock assumes - but the message boards are already populating with theories.

 

At best, it’s drivel and speculation as to who Mycroft is. At worst, the more investigation-inclined of the commenters are doing the work of connecting Mycroft sightings to cases Sherlock has solved, weaving the narrative of these two arch-rivals on opposite sides of the law.

 

“There can  _ only _ be one outcome,” Sherlock finishes reading one particularly elaborate theory. He huffs, muttering to himself, “What do they think we’re going to do, fight to the death?”

 

“Is- is it possible?”

 

“What?” Sherlock asks, and it’s a roar. That doesn’t deter John one bit.

 

“Is Mycroft capable of all this?” John asks.

 

Sherlock is furious.

 

“You’re always going on about how he’s been locked up, and how much havoc he’s caused, and now you tell me he stripped the entire nation, intelligence and military included, of their cyber defenses, as a 15-year-old  _ child _ and you don’t think he could plan something like this if he wanted to?” John asks. “I mean, you’re clever. You could pull this off if you wanted to but I know you and I know you didn’t-”

 

Instead of refuting every point as John would normally expect of Sherlock, he just looks pained.  He sounds exhausted when he asks, “And when have you ever known Mycroft to be anything other than an attention-seeking child, John? He is not some evil mastermind.”

 

Part of Sherlock wants to believe this will all blow over. The better part of him knows that though none of these conspiracy posters are Moriarty, it would not be amiss for him to have planted hints here and there, even nudged the right amateur theorists to his desired position.

 

He’s about to schedule a meeting with one of the more prolific commenters when news breaks - literal news.

 

“Who Is Moriarty? The True Story,” John reads aloud from The Sun.

 

Sherlock spins around to see a big question marked silhouette on the cover, so he moves around behind John’s chair to read it. 

 

It’s worse than he could have imagined. Childhood details,  _ accurate _ childhood details, a candid photograph. Even a mention that he worked briefly for MI6. A load of garbage mixed in as well, but there’s enough truth to it that Sherlock’s blood runs cold.

 

Then he sees the byline.

 

.

 

Kitty Riley puts her key into her front door lock only to find it’s already been unlocked.

 

Cautiously, she pushes the door open; she can see a sliver of light pour into the hall from her sitting room.

 

She debates running, when a familiar voice calls out.

 

“Too late to go on the record?”

 

It’s Sherlock Holmes.

 

.

 

Kitty sits in her armchair while Sherlock and John take the couch. Her recorder is in hand, as is her notepad and pen. 

 

“I see that after I refused to give an interview you decided to turn to the other side,” Sherlock says.

 

Kitty just smiles. 

 

“A good story’s a good story,” she says. 

 

“Except you never spoke to  _ Moriarty _ himself, did you?” Sherlock says. “Your story’s a fiction.”

 

This seems to put her off, more than Sherlock expected. 

 

“Oh, come on, Kitty, no one trusts the voice at the end of a telephone,” Sherlock goads. “Who  _ is _ Brook, your so-called source. Turning up all of a sudden with the Holy Grail in his pockets. How do you know you can trust him? What were his credentials?”

 

She doesn’t have to answer - because the man himself stumbles into the room. Hair a mess, slouchy cardigan and light-wash jeans - it takes John’s brain a second to catch up and convince himself he’s seeing what he’s seeing.

 

“Darling, they didn’t have any ground coffee so I just got…”

 

He trails off, seeing that they have guests, and then his eyes widen seeing who they are.

 

“You said that they wouldn’t find me here, you said I’d be safe here!” he voices in a trembling, quiet shout as he backs himself into a corner.

 

“You  _ are _ safe, Richard. I’m a witness - he wouldn’t harm you in front of witnesses,” Kitty says.

 

John stands, pointing at Moriarty, visibly angry enough for the both of them.

 

_ “This _ is your source? Moriarty is Richard Brook?!” John demands.

 

‘Richard’ cowers as Kitty turns on him, hands on her hips. “Of course he’s Richard Brook. He’s an  _ actor _ , one of the few people who’ve had direct contact with Moriarty himself.”

 

She turns a rather smug look at Sherlock. “I’m surprised you didn’t know, until reading my article,” Kitty says.

 

She turns to John. “You can look him up yourself.”

 

“I’m on TV!” Moriarty cries. “I’m - I’m the storyteller!”

 

He turns pleading eyes on Sherlock next. “You remember, we met at the pool - He was there, Moriarty. He hired me to play a part, to, to set it all up. The shoes killed him, remember?”

 

“You tried to blow me up!” John yells, incredulous. He remembers - hands strapping an explosive vest to his torso - waking up from the drug to see a soft-faced man in a designer suit telling him he was going to die.

 

Moriarty shrinks even more - if possible - at the raised voices, holding his arms up. 

 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. He paid me. I needed work-!” he pleads. “Please don’t let him know I was here!”

 

John turns to Sherlock for answers. 

 

“Oh, don’t look at him, I’m the one who’ll be doing all the explaining,” Kitty says. She produces a folder full of evidence. “And here’s the proof.”

 

John takes it, reading page after page of details of Mycroft’s transgressions and the people he’s paid off to enable them. The photos, out of context, are damning.

 

“Classic story of spy turned terrorist,” Kitty says. Sherlock looks sharply at her at that, but she just gives him a winning smile. “And our hero detective who thwarted it all.”

 

He holds her gaze.

 

“Miss Riley, even you can’t be naive enough to believe all this. What is it then, your career? Is getting your big story worth condemning a man to death?” Sherlock asks, voice level and deathly quiet.  

 

She falters, just slightly. Then she says, “I have more proof,” and darts off to procure it. 

 

The moment she’s gone, Moriarty’s expression turns dark and coy.

 

“Which will it be? Your reputation, or your baby brother? The pieces are all there for you to take  _ responsibility _ \- he’s a Holmes,  _ you _ made him put together all these crimes, just so you could solve them,” Moriarty says. “Oh, don’t look like that.  _ He’s _ in on this too.”

 

This is news to John, but Sherlock lunges, fists swinging. Before John can decide whether to help or pull Sherlock away, gunshots fire. 

 

Smoke is next, and then a special tactical unit pulls Moriarty out of the house, all the while crying about how Moriarty found him, how Kitty promised he’d be safe, protesting his innocence.

 

Kitty comes back in time, a DVD of “Richard’s” in her hand, to see a group of black SUVs driving off.

 

She turns to Sherlock, adrenaline running through her veins. 

 

“Now do you believe me?” Kitty asks.

 

.

 

John has no opportunity to question Sherlock after the fact, he runs off so quickly. Thankfully he’s back at 221B before the end of the day.

 

“Is it possible they’re working together?” John asks quietly. 

 

Sherlock closes himself off in his room without so much as a word.


	26. Chapter 26

Jim comes home raking his fingers through his hair, wrinkling his nose at the gunpowder and smoke smell that he’ll have to wash out.

 

Mycroft is still sulking.

 

He slams the book he was reading shut the moment Jim walks in and stalks out of the room.

 

“Are you still mad?” Jim calls after him, unsure. “Okay, okay, maybe I should’ve asked before having you take my name?”

 

Mycroft pokes his head back out in the doorway.

 

“There are ARMORED CARS outside of my PARENTS’ HOUSE, _Jim._ Of _course_ I’m still mad! Fix this!!”

 

Then he slams his door.

 

Jim stands alone in the middle of his living room for a moment, scratching the stubble along his jawline as he counts down.

 

Mycroft stomps back in before he gets to zero.

 

“Let me speak to Sherlock,” he demands.

 

Jim scowls.

 

“No! The whole point of this is-”

 

“I don’t CARE about your stupid games right now! Let me speak to Sherlock. Or I’ll find a way anyway! And you won’t like it when I do.” Mycroft _does_ stomp his foot this time.

 

Jim’s expression is closed off for a few moments; Mycroft can’t tell if he’s angry or uncaring or nervous or what.

 

“Are you really unhappy? Actually really unhappy?” he asks.

 

Mycroft lets out a frustrated groan and wants to strangle the man.

 

“You KIDNAPPED me!”

 

Jim only gives him a skeptical look. “Well…”

 

“What else would you call it?! My boss wants me shot on sight!”

 

“Former boss,” Jim corrects.

 

“You took out two guards when your people broke me out of my car, and the driver is still in the hospital! I am a fugitive with absolutely no identification and I’m going to have to live my life on the run! And it’s _worse_ than before because I can’t even visit for Christmas! I didn’t ask for this!”

 

“So is this about Christmas...?” Jim asks, still trying to follow. “Just to be clear.”

 

Mycroft breaks off, and Jim startles for a moment thinking he’s about to cry - and how totally absurd this already is - but then Mycroft runs back into his room.

 

Jim follows, very tentatively, not wanting to deal with anyone’s tears. Or Mycroft could be trying to build a bomb in there, it’s really anyone’s guess.

 

The door’s ajar, so Jim pushes it open with a finger, very slowly.

 

It’s neither. Instead, Mycroft’s just sort of collapsed dramatically on a sofa, arm flung over his eyes.

 

Jim sighs, annoyed, and leans against the doorway.

 

“We both know it was only a matter of time before you outgrew your...situation, anyway. Hell, the only thing keeping you there was Sherlock, wasn’t it? I just thought I’d help speed things along,” Jim explains, not an iota of apology in his voice.

 

Mycroft sits up, shooting him a look of utter disbelief.

 

“You don’t just _grow_ out of sibling relationships, Jim.”

 

Jim shrugs. “Agree to disagree.”

 

“What, so your plan was just to have Sherlock publicly declare me his enemy? He’s been doing so since I was three, Jim, this is hardly new,” Mycroft says, squeezing a cushion to death.

 

Jim crosses his arms, avoidant.

 

“Well you going on the run was a big plus,” Jim adds flippantly.

 

“That, or Sherlock takes responsibility for setting you up, offs himself when he can’t deal with the guilt - after a very public declaration, of course - and then you’re free to become Mycroft Holmes again. If you want.”

 

“What.”

 

Mycroft’s face is completely blank, and it’s more than a bit disconcerting. Jim’s a little worried that cushion between his hands is going to burst.

 

“Um.”

 

“You _what.”_

 

.

 

Mycroft Holmes steps onto the rooftop of St. Bart’s, alone. At least on his end.

 

He can see Sherlock waiting for him on the other end, looking over the city, but it seems he’s brought snipers, perched on every rooftop surrounding the hospital. He’s here on behalf of Smallwood, then.

 

“Sherlock,” Mycroft says, stepping close to the center. He stops, intending Sherlock to meet him halfway.

 

Sherlock takes his time in turning around, in facing his brother.

 

“I should have known this would happen, in the end,” Sherlock says. His voice is grave, and after a moment of consideration, he does approach, but only a step or two.

 

Then he pulls out a gun.

 

Mycroft recoils, eyes on the weapon, only darting up to look at his brother’s face.

 

“I can explain!” he says.

 

“You’ve gone too far this time, Mycroft, and not even I can save you,” Sherlock says, and it sounds nothing like him. “But if you have to go, I’d rather it be me.”

 

“Sherlock,” Mycroft whispers, visibly heartbroken. His eyes widen, realizing how serious Sherlock is. He has a choice: resign himself to this, or run.

 

He takes a step back - and Sherlock fires.

 

And Mycroft falls.


	27. Chapter 27

John answers the door fully with the intention of turning any potential client away. Sherlock is in no state to be working cases, and hasn’t spoken a word to John in a day. That in itself is not unusual, but Sherlock has also been spending every waking moment in correspondence with various sketchy seeming people online and John is worried they might now be in league with various hit men.

 

But the brunette in the doorway when he answers - God, can you blame him for being rendered speechless for just a moment?

 

But a moment’s all she needs, nudging past him all too gently with a polite smile.

 

“I need to speak to Sherlock Holmes,” she says. 

 

It takes John’s better judgement a second to catch up.

 

“Um, sorry. I don’t think he’s up for-”

 

“Ah, you’re here.”

 

John whirls around at the sound, seeing his flatmate dressed and looking well - well enough - and taking a seat in his armchair as if he’s been expecting this client.

 

John makes a face, gesturing between them, implicitly asking Sherlock to explain the connection (and make an  _ introduction). _

 

“Anthea, was it?” Sherlock says, just as John is settling into his own chair. He coughs.

 

_ “Anthea?”  _ John asks. “You’re a real person? Sorry, I just mean-”

 

‘Anthea’ tucks her hair behind her ear to show a bluetooth device, and covers it again just as quickly. Sherlock shoots John a look, and he realizes it is perhaps not in their best interest to reveal everything they know - who know who might be listening.

 

“Andrea, actually,” she says. She taps her ear. “He thought it’d be a more immersive experience this way.”

 

“This is so…

 

“Oh come now, John, this can’t even be in the top ten weirdest things you’ve seen on the job,” Sherlock says. “Please, continue.”

 

She folds her hands together.

 

“My client, let’s call him Mr. Michaelson, has heard about what a fine detective you are!” she says, and it’s classic small talk, but now John can’t help but squint and try to see Mycroft’s machinations behind her words. Sherlock, rolling his eyes, must feel the same way. 

 

Still, the message is effective: Mycroft knows what’s going on.

 

“He has a very pressing matter he would like your counsel on, but you have to understand, he values his privacy and anonymity highly. This is why I am here to assess your process,” ‘Andrea’ says.

 

“And what might that matter be?” Sherlock asks drily. John studies him, and sees this must be an act. The exhaustion shows clearly on his face, and he’s worked long and hard to get this half-meeting with Mycroft’s proxy, to get any news that Mycroft was alright.

 

“My client thinks someone is trying to kill him,” Andrea says simply. 

 

This, too, surprises John, but Sherlock isn’t surprised in the least.

 

“Go on.”

 

“He’s a highly sensitive man, you must understand, some might even call him eccentric. But he believes that in three days time, he will step onto his rooftop garden, as he does every so often, and before he has a chance to even water the buttercups, a tall man in a dark coat steps out from behind the Camellia trees and shoots him in cold blood,” Andrea says.

 

John blinks.

 

She sighs. “I understand, you don’t believe me.”

 

“No, no, keep going,” Sherlock says. 

 

“That’s it. That is the whole of his theory.”

 

“Your client, he gets...visions?” John asks.

 

“It’s more of a feeling,” Andrea answers slowly, looking for the right words.

 

“Then why not just avoid the rooftop altogether?” Sherlock asks sharply. “Or, eccentric as he is, move?”

 

Andrea nods understandingly. “My client believes there are few offenses worse than deliberately avoiding our fates. He intends to see this out, you understand, so my request is not for protection detail, but that you find and apprehend the killer, after the fact, I can only assume, and bring him to justice for what he’s done. My client is also very curious as to what might possibly prompt this hit.”

 

Sherlock sits back, fingers of one hand meeting the other, forming a pyramid with his hands.

 

Andrea is very polite as to let him do his thinking as if she has all the time in the world.

 

“Interesting,” Sherlock finally murmurs. “Alright, I’ll take your case.”

 

“You understand I cannot give you my client’s name, and that you are free to survey his house but he will not speak to you?” Andrea asks.

 

“Unusual, but it won’t make solving this impossible,” Sherlock says. 

 

“And you must not spread details of this case, anywhere, at all,” Andrea says. “That means no blogging, Dr. Watson.”

 

“I- yeah, of course, we’ve done confidential work before,” he says.

 

“Not even with changed names of people and places,” Andrea adds.

 

“Yes, yes,” Sherlock says dismissively. “We’ll catch the killer, we’ll even let you know  _ why _ before he kills.”

 

“It doesn’t quite sit right with me to  _ let _ the murder happen,” John says, a bit caught up in the scenario now, but they ignore him.

 

“Excellent!” Andrea says. “I’ll forward you more details shortly.”

 

Sherlock stands, and John shows her to the door, but she turns around once she’s out the doorway.

 

“When his phone was destroyed,” she says, taking the earpiece out. “He’d moved her onto this.”

 

She holds out her hand, palm up, with the device. John, very gingerly, picks it up. 

 

Andrea smiles one last time, and then she’s gone.

 

John turns to Sherlock, holding up the earpiece containing the world’s most advanced artificial intelligence, only to find his friend already putting on his coat.

 

“Where are you going?” John asks.

 

“To find a corpse,” Sherlock says.

 

.

 

Sherlock stops by the newstand, picking up the latest tabloid installment of his epic saga.

 

HERO DETECTIVE FOILS MORIARTY - FOR GOOD

 

He can still  _ feel _ the crack of the gunshot as he fired - that wasn’t the plan. The plan had been to talk him down as Smallwood’s men closed in and took him into custody. 

 

As it were, they were too far to reach the body when Mycroft went down, and by the time they’d made it up to the St. Barts roof, medical personnel had helped Sherlock bring the body down to the basement. 

 

In theory, anyway. 

 

Medical personnel did rush out, and move the body onto a stretcher off the roof. But he’d made Mycroft walk. 

 

Mycroft had made a big show of pouting as he stomped down the stairs, picking ruefully at the blood-soaked shirt - real blood too, that he’d given weeks ago. He put the clothes in bag Molly held out and threw on scrubs instead, and the moment he did he turned around and squeezed the life out of Sherlock in a bone-crushing hug. 

 

He’d let him, too, for far longer than he normally might have, and patted him awkwardly on the back.

 

“Sherlock, you really are my favorite brother,” Mycroft says.

 

“Mycroft I am your ONLY brother.” Sherlock can’t even muster up half the exasperation he normally would.

 

“Go on,” he finally says, when Mycroft slowly peels himself off. “Molly will get the cadaver ready as a backup, but I’ll be on my way to intercept Lady Smallwood anyway.”

 

“Won’t fool her for long,” Mycroft says through a yawn. It makes Sherlock frown and take him by the shoulders. “Not that we have to.”

 

“Are you sure about this?” he asks, only to sigh grumpily as Mycroft gives him a sleepy nod. Sherlock digs through his pockets and hands him the Anthea earpiece.

 

Mycroft frowns at it. “You got lint in it!”

 

_ “Go.” _

 

.

 

Sherlock tosses the tabloid of the day onto Smallwood’s desk as she beckons him to take a seat.

 

She scoffs.

 

“You don’t expect me to believe you really killed your brother, certainly not for your country,” Smallwood says. “Or that the body on the slab in the morgue is Mycroft Holmes, no matter what the DNA match says.”

 

“Mm, I agree,” Sherlock says. “Our nation’s great newspapers barely amount to fairy tales, do they? With the amount of disinformation you circulate.”

 

“Get to the point, Mr. Holmes,” she snaps. They’d already spent all yesterday in the same room, she interrogating him under the guise of a debrief in which they lost Mycroft Holmes as an asset. 

 

Sherlock pulls out a laptop, and turns it on to display a blank video chat.

 

And then there’s Mycroft, a butterfly bandage near his temple, sitting in what looks like a hospital room. 

 

Smallwood purses her lips and Sherlock, studying her face, realizes with some horror that she had in a way been worried about Mycroft too.

 

“Sorry!” Mycroft says, apologizing immediately with an especially contrite expression. “We never meant to keep you in the dark, but with my identity theft and Moriarty pinning his crimes on me, I had no chance to explain!”

 

Sherlock strains to keep from burying his face in his hands. He was going to try to play into her good graces then? This was it, this was why he was always their parents’ favorite, his teachers’ favorite, and so on and so forth.

 

“Am I to believe that you had nothing to do with any of the publicized crimes, then, Mycroft Holmes?” she asks wryly. 

 

Mycroft pouts - honest to God  _ pouts _ .

 

“Not everything, and even the ones I was - I didn’t mean to. What else was I supposed to do, abducted with no way out?”

 

She raises an eyebrow, still not entirely convinced he couldn’t have found a way out, especially now that she knew his last business trip wasn’t one at all.

 

“And where are you now?” Smallwood asks.

 

Mycroft clears his throat.

 

“Ah,” she says; the lack of answer, the lack of  _ trust _ going both ways - it’s telling.

 

“There are conditions for his return,” Sherlock interjects.

 

“Conditions?” Smallwood says. She laughs.

 

“I know enough to bring Moriarty’s entire network down,” Mycroft says.

 

This has her full attention.

 

“Were you working with him?” she asks.

 

“From when I was with him, I saw enough to have working knowledge of his operations, and Anthea has copies of the rest. It would take years to replicate what I have, and this, plus my expertise, is what I will trade you for my...freedom,” Mycroft says, slow and measured. 

 

She says nothing, so Sherlock speaks.

 

“One year of work, for you, and he walks away with a clean set of records, all his identification, free to live as any other citizen who isn’t on a persons of interest list,” Sherlock says.

 

“One year!” Smallwood laughs. “Do you know how long we track some of these heads of criminal rings, Mr. Holmes? And Moriarty is acting executive to all those heads.”

 

“Yes, but, with what I have, I’m confident I can do it in a year,” Mycroft says. “If it takes longer, add that to my tab. I’ll work for you until I bring the entire web down. In exchange, I want my name back. I want a passport, a license - I don’t want to be a ghost anymore.”

 

Smallwood watches him carefully, and Sherlock watches her. It’s a dangerous deal, as should Smallwood renege, it would take a lot of work to extricate Mycroft all over again.

 

“Fine,” she finally says, and Mycroft’s face lights up. 

 

“We’ll need that in writing of course,” Sherlock adds. She rolls her eyes. 

 

Mycroft makes a final promise, and then Sherlock closes the feed down, and puts away his laptop. Then he and Smallwood look at each other, still tense with unease, and silently come to a truce.

 

.

 

Mycroft pulls his IV prop out the second the video chat ends, and pulls off the bandaid and rubs off the makeup simulating a wound. He hops out of the fake hospital bed and stretches, before glancing at the man in the doorway.

 

“You’ll probably only have half a day of a headstart before they put me to work,” Mycroft says. “And I won’t go easy on you either, when I said a year I meant it.”

 

Jim gives him a crooked smile and shrugs.

 

“Then I want to spend every minute of that with you,” he says easily. 

 

Mycroft clears his throat and ducks his head. Jim is strange, and the stakes are never really normal with him. 

 

“Are you sure you’re not going to hate me for this?” he asks, biting his lip.

 

Jim walks over to sit at the foot of the bed, looking up at Mycroft. 

 

“For going back to that hellhole? I hate you already.”

 

“For taking down your  _ empire.” _

 

“Do with it what you like, think of it as your inheritance.”

 

Mycroft looks at him suspiciously, crossing his arms.

 

“And what are  _ you _ going to do for the next year?”

 

“Take a well deserved vacation. Join a space program. Get my name on one of those university halls, an endowment named after me maybe. I need to figure out  _ something _ to do with my name since you won’t take it.”

 

Mycroft side-eyes him and his very obvious lies.

 

“You’re plotting.”

  
“Mm, yes, and it’ll be  _ so _ much fun.”


	28. Chapter 28

ONE YEAR LATER

 

Mycroft barges into 221B proudly brandishing what looks like a small notebook.

 

“Sherlock!” he says, as his brother saws away his violin with ever-increasing vigour in order to drown out his greetings. “Sherlock, look!”

 

Eventually, Sherlock has to come to terms with the little notebook Mycroft’s shoved in his face: It’s a passport.

 

“Yes, yes, you and 50 million other people in Britain, hooray,” Sherlock deadpans, nudging Mycroft out of the way.

 

“Dr. Watson, I see you're still valiantly putting up with my brother.”

 

“Oh Mycroft,” John says, barely having made it down the stairs into the living room. “Has it been a year already? Congratulations.”

 

“Did your photograph come out badly?” John jokes, heading into the kitchen to set down his mug.

 

“I have to say, I don't know where that comes from. Every one of my photos turned out fine.”

 

“Then it must be unrecognizable when they hold it up next to your face,” Sherlock mutters, setting down his violin and loosening the bow.

 

“I have  _ always _ come out lovely in photographs,” Mycroft shoots back.

 

“Mycroft was horribly obese as a baby,” Sherlock says flippantly. 

 

“I was  _ adorable!” _ Mycroft protests.

 

Sherlock steals the passport back and makes a face.  _ “This _ is what you chose for a middle name?”

 

“Do you, um, do you want to stay for lunch?” John asks, seeing as today was technically something worth celebrating, but a bit hesitant because he wasn’t sure he could take an entire meal of the brothers sniping at each other.

 

“I can’t stay,” Mycroft explains. “I only came to show you, but I have to go now.”

 

“Go? You’re finished with all that Moriarty stuff now though, aren’t you?” John asks.

 

“Yes, but Jim is taking me out to lunch,” Mycroft says, upon which Sherlock slams his violin case closed a little too hard, and the muscle around his eye twitches.

 

_ “Jim?” _ he demands.

 

“Yes, that’s why I needed the passport on rush,” Mycroft explains. “Bye!”

 

The door closes just as quickly as Mycroft had barged in and Sherlock is left staring at it as his jumble of big brother emotions fail to process.

 

“Um,” John says, breaking the silence. “He seems well, doesn’t he?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. I had this Moriarty-dies plot all planned out so I could, in a way, honor canon, but then before I started posting the TRF segment I realized it got a bit too much given how the rest of the story had so far been relatively light? Like they might deal with a few high-stakes situation but they’d never had to face anything blowing up in their faces thus far. And most importantly, it seemed a bit mean that the first friend Mycroft makes has to die. Instead we get a happy ending! More or less. Yay. I hope this outcome doesn’t disappoint.
> 
> Thanks so much to everyone for reading and commenting on the way, it definitely made the story a lot more fun to share, and I hope everyone reading has enjoyed it. 
> 
> I’ve decided to cap it off here because I don’t have anything concrete planned for a S3 or S4 parallel so far, beyond some snippets here and there. Potentially S3 will coincide with Mycroft’s year of commanding the Moriarty Task Force. Kitty Riley will only be more than happy to help Mycroft clear his name in the press in exchange for the exclusive scoop. Maybe it’ll be done in chunks and side stories, so at least this arc is finished.
> 
> thanks again! 
> 
>  
> 
> If you liked this you might like:  
> AU where Mycroft is ACTUALLY a minor government worker **[here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13800771)**  
>  AU where Mycroft is actually a food critic, but everyone thinks he’s a super secret agent government spy **[here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16081817/chapters/37555124)**  
>  AU where Molly was a spy working for Mycroft the entire time **[here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13609566)**


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